


Cold Burn

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:45:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Winchesters and Castiel turn to Gabriel for help, Sam makes a deal he’s sure he’s going to regret. He and Gabriel both struggle with outcome, and strange disappearances and stranger weather lead them into a hunt for something that’s affecting an entire state as it lures its victims into its clutches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The dreams started two weeks after Mystery Spot.

It was always the same place. It was always the _same_. A small diner with blood splattered across the floor and walls; with the dead patrons slumped in the booths, the remains of their food congealing on their plates. Sprigs of holly and mistletoe littered the diner, trailing across the bodies like it had just fallen there from nowhere.

The Trickster sat in the booth furthest from the door, eating pancakes that had been drowned in maple syrup. He looked up at Sam and shrugged. “This wasn’t me,” he said, obviously anticipating Sam’s question. “It’s careless and pointless. There’s a no lesson here. This is showing off. _Oh, look how bad I can be. Look how much damage I can do. I’m going to make you bleed unless you stop me or join me_. This was one of my brothers’ work.”

Never me, was the implication beneath the words. The Trickster was cruel, but mass murder? It wasn’t his style at all.

Sam stepped forward and took a seat opposite him. The leather was worn soft from years of people sliding along it; there was a small puddle of blood at one end from the woman at the next table. His boots stuck in the blood on the floor, just beginning to dry. He glanced down and–

 _The floor was grass and the mistletoe and holly was still there, but joined by plants Sam was sure didn’t even exist anymore. The Trickster was barefoot: he curled his toes into the grass then tilted his feet back to dig his feels in, like it was home for him, humming something under his breath that sounded like a summoning spell in a long dead language._

A blink and it was gone, and there was only the dull tiled floor and sticky blood. With another look at the floor, just to check, Sam forced his gaze to the Trickster’s face. There was a smear of blood across his cheek.

“I want to make a deal,” were words that weren’t Sam’s; that Sam had never even thought about saying.

The Trickster pursed his lips. “I’m not a demon. I don’t make deals. Exchanges are more fun for everyone involved.”

Between them, the table flickered and changed–  
 _  
Stone, worn smooth from years of bodies sliding across it, but it was never taken by force and he was a liar when it came to the details, but never in a bad way. They asked and he gave and it was an exchange, not a deal. And the table wasn’t a table, it was an altar, but there was energy and power to be served to him and it wasn’t his life, but it was a life and–_

Then it was a table and not an altar, and the Trickster was still eating his pancakes like nothing had happened.

Sliding across the leather seat, his jeans catching on the small scraps that stuck up, Sam asked, “What was that?”

The Trickster smiled and–

 _His lips were ripped and torn and the blood ran down his chin and dripped onto the table, but the table wasn’t the table from the diner and it wasn’t a table, and it wasn’t the altar from before. It was a tree stump and the floor beside them was a slow flowing river. A small pile of pieces of bloodstained leather string sat on the top of the stump._

“What are you?” Sam whispered. Another flicker and–

 _Shadows curving across the wall, huge and accompanied by a flash of light that made Sam’s eyes hurt, made him feel his body heat like he was going to burn right there, dream or not._

“What _are_ you?”

The creature opposite him smiled again and it wasn’t quite a predator eyeing its prey, wasn’t quite cruel, wasn’t quite happy. It was something dangerous but controlled, like a dog wearing a muzzle. Controlled, but no less deadly in the right circumstances, no less deadly if the muzzle came off.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

They were the same every night, and Sam had no idea what they meant for almost two years.  



	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Winchesters and Castiel turn to Gabriel for help, Sam makes a deal he’s sure he’s going to regret. He and Gabriel both struggle with outcome, and strange disappearances and stranger weather lead them into a hunt for something that’s affecting an entire state as it lures its victims into its clutches.

The room he found himself in definitely wasn’t the motel room Sam had gone to sleep in. The motel room had been small and cramped, with possibly unclean sheets and a questionable stain on the dirty carpet. This room was... more like something out of someone’s house. Two sofas were arranged on opposite sides of the room, matching armchairs on either side of them. A sofa-bed, unfolded and unmade, was partially hidden under a pile of books and what looked like two broken laptops. Through one arching doorway, he could see a kitchen and it looked like the other door led into a hall. The window looked out across a field, another house visible on the other side. A Jack Russell gazed at Sam curiously from beside one of the armchairs, ears swiveling in his direction.

He had never seen any of it in his life; that much he was sure of.

“If you don’t want to visit new places, don’t go to sleep thinking about me.”

Sam turned around. Gabriel was sitting in one of the armchairs, wearing a t-shirt and what looked like red silk boxers. Aside from his attire– and the fact that he was dry –he looked exactly the same as he had in the warehouse when Sam had last seen him, right down to the slightly bitter curve of his lips.

The dog looked at Gabriel for a moment before deciding that it wouldn’t be getting any attention from him, and wandered over to Sam, its nails clicking against the wooden floor.

“You have a dog?” Sam asked, but scratched its ears anyway. It wagged its tail happily, scrabbling at his legs and trying to push up against his hand every time he went to stop. “And a house?”

Gabriel stared at him with the same intensity he usually got from Castiel, like he was seriously considering taking him apart to see how every piece of him worked. It wasn’t comforting when he got it from Cas, and it was even less so when it came from Gabriel; the archangel would probably do it. “Coyote. He’s named after an old friend. The house isn’t mine, though. I just live here since _someone_ blew my cover.”

That explained why the house looked nothing like anything Gabriel would own, even if it wasn’t real... which it apparently was. In his head, Gabriel’s house had always been bright, filled with half-naked women and painted like the set of that awful sitcom he’d trapped them in. Tacky and impersonal. There was a lavish display of chocolates on the coffee table, though.

“Why’d you bring me here? If this is another one of your games–”

“I told you already: I didn’t bring you here. Well, I brought you here, but that’s not why I’m here. You were thinking about me– very loudly –before you fell asleep. I had to bring you here before my brothers did their homework and realized that you know me. I haven’t kept under the radar by letting people call for me all this time,” He sat up, his clothes transforming into jeans and a shirt but left his feet bare, “And don’t even get me started on all the screaming in the parking lot.”

“Oh.” It hadn’t occurred to Sam that, while other angels couldn’t find them, they could still hear them. He thought of the half hour he’d spent shouting for Gabriel after the demon had tried to throw Dean from the rooftop. If Gabriel had heard him, who else had? How many other angels had heard him asking for help? _Of course_ they were listening. They wanted them dead: they were hardly going to sit around and wait for them to walk right into their hands... if angels had hands. “I–”

Gabriel held up a hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn’t know, you’re sorry, this is all your fault, yadda, yadda, yadda. Skip the encore and let’s get straight to the main performance. You need help, and I’m willing to provide you with some.”

“What?” Sam stopped petting Coyote– he wasn’t going to ask about the name, he didn’t want to know how Gabriel knew him –and the dog whined and pushed against his fingers. “Why would you do that?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Sammy-boy. It’s not gonna be free.”

“I didn’t think it would be.” Nothing was ever free with angels– unless Sam counted Cas, who’d cut the strings at about the same time he’d been cut off from Heaven. Gabriel, though, had never seemed like the sort of person who gave anything away, not even when he’d been the Trickster. Knowing Sam’s luck, it would involve being turned into a rabbit from six in the evening to six in the morning.

“That’s a nice one,” Gabriel laughed, “but I’m a lot more inventive than that. If I wanted to screw with you, it wouldn’t be that simple. Maybe a ferret for a week every month.”

“Just tell me what you want.”

“I help you, and you occasionally show me your... _appreciation_.” The smile turned decidedly lecherous as Gabriel looked him up and down, but even without it, Sam would have known what he meant.

He’d been expecting something like that, but it was still a surprise. Whatever he’d done, Gabriel was still an angel and Sam had wanted to expect something better of him, some proof that there was more than the Trickster persona he’d adopted.

“Why?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“You don’t even like me.”

Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t like anyone very much. You and your brother are entertaining, I’ll give you that much, which is more than I can say about most of my brothers. That’s my offer, take it or leave it.”

“But–”

“Going once!” One finger flicked up.

“Gabriel.”

“Going twice!” A second finger flicked up.

“Fine,” Sam bit out, “okay, I’ll do it. You help us and I’ll...” He waved one hand in what he hoped was a vague reference to the deal. “I’ll do it.”

His expression shifted from tinged with amusement to something harder, almost surprised. “You really are desperate, aren’t you?”

The shirt Sam had been wearing before he’d gone to bed had been covered in dirt with blood on the sleeves. Most of it had been Dean’s, but some had been Sam’s and a few drops had been Castiel’s from when the demon had scratched him. He’d been bleeding like a human, the smear of red stark against his pale skin. It had taken twenty minutes of Dean staring at Castiel, and the wound, for Cas to leave. He didn’t even know if the cut had healed. It had been more terrifying than most of the things Sam had seen.

“Jo and Ellen are dead,” he said instead. “They died helping us try and stop your brother. The least you can do is help us, especially since you haven’t done anything useful so far.”

“Really? What do you think would have happened if I hadn’t made you live through that time loop, huh?” Gabriel said sharply and leaned forward. “How much faster do you think Ruby would have screwed you over if you hadn’t been prepared? You should think yourself lucky that I’m letting you start with a blank slate. I don’t have to. I don’t even have to get involved: this isn’t my fight. If you want my help, you’ve got to pay for it somehow and I don’t think that you’re that good at hustling pool to hire an archangel.”

It was hard not to say, _Lucifer’s your brother. You and your brothers should have taken care of him a long time ago. This shouldn’t have become our fight._

“You started it,” Gabriel said and Sam knew that he’d been listening to his thoughts.

Sam looked away. Dean was going to kill him, and Cas would know what he’d done the second he saw him.

The archangel’s expression softened marginally as he sat up straighter, looking back at something Sam couldn’t see. “Call it a gesture of good faith, or maybe it’s just stupidity, but I’ll help you once. One lifeline, and then you have to find me or you’re on your own.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”

“I’m still an angel. I’m giving you my word.”

Gabriel vanished but the room didn’t. It stayed the same, as did the dog– Coyote –who licked Sam’s fingers, rubbed against his legs and followed him around the room.

Photographs of varying combinations of the same group of people were pinned to the cork board that took up most of one wall, a few sketches and a painting accompanying them. The opposite wall was covered in pieces of paper, some print-outs of driving licenses and IDs, others barely legible notes. It was the map in the middle of the mess that caught Sam’s eye, though. One of the post-its had ‘ _we are here dumbass_ ’ scrawled across it in ink the colour of fresh blood, a string pinned to the edge leading to a point on the map. He tried to memorize the map, to remember exactly where the pin was, where the house was.

Where Gabriel was.

The house vanished around him and Sam woke up in the same motel room he’d fallen asleep in, Dean asleep on the other bed, Castiel nowhere to be seen. He grabbed a notepad from the table which held the alarm– it read 08:11–and started to sketch as much of the map as he could.

It had definitely been a map of part of Tennessee, but the pin hadn’t been pointing to any of the towns or cities. It had been pointing to one of the blank spaces which signified fields and wide open spaces, like he’d seen from the window. The closest town that had made it onto the map was Birchwood. Gabriel was somewhere in the middle of nowhere, in Tennessee.

With a gasp, Dean woke, one hand going to his ribs, the other sliding under his pillow for the knife he kept there. Sam let the pen drop from his hand. “Something’s wrong.”

 _Gabriel left. How do you know he didn’t decide that he wanted to talk to Dean? How do you know he didn’t tell him about the deal?_

“Like what?”

“Cas. I was talking to him and then everything just–” he waved one hand from side to side, “just melted. I don’t know where he went.”

“It was another angel,” Castiel said from right behind Sam. “Thankfully Gabriel led Jophiel astray shortly after he found us.”

Still on the bed, but with his fingers curled into the sheets like he just had to hold onto something or everything would melt away like the dream, Dean watched Cas cross the room. Sam took a sudden interest in the pattern on the carpet; he preferred not to have to watch his brother eye-fucking an angel. It was bad enough watching him do it with the women he picked up.

A _lthough I’ve just agreed to do something a lot worse than eye-fuck an angel._ Oh, yeah, even without the demon blood, Sam was pretty sure he was going to Hell.

“I thought they couldn’t find us.”

“They can’t. Jophiel was searching for something else and stumbled upon us. It was luck rather than skill or abilities that led him to us.”

“What about Gabriel?”

Sam felt Cas’ gaze land on him. “I believe that Sam knows the answer.”

“Sam?”

“I... asked him for help after we got back yesterday. He answered last night.”

There was a rustle of sheets that announced Dean’s movements. It didn’t sound like he was going for the holy oil– or holy water –which was a plus. He was already taking the news a lot better than Sam had expected him to.

“And? Is he going to man up and help us?”

“Only if we can find him.” Best not to mention the deal to Dean, even though Cas was burning a hole in the back of Sam’s head, and he was pretty sure the angel already knew.

“Oh, well that’s going to be easy. An angel who can look like anyone, who can create entire worlds, and all we have to do is find him. How do you even know he was telling the truth? He hasn’t been that great every other time we’ve met him.”

Sam held up the crudely drawn map. “He’s in Tennessee.”

Dean pulled the Impala over to the side of the dirt road and switched the engine off. “I think you wrote it down wrong.”

“The barman said that it was the next right,” Sam said, holding out the sheet of paper he’d written the directions on. The barman had been happy to help, even commenting that not many people went that way, if they ‘caught his drift.’ What that meant, Sam had no idea, but Dean had been in a hurry to get out of the place and hadn’t given him a chance to ask. All the directions had worked out fine, even the ones from the shifty looking guy in Birchwood, until they’d reached the tiny town that hadn’t even been marked on the map. Cas had left to try and find the house Sam had described soon after they’d been given the directions. He squinted at them. It was starting to get dark, and the longer they drove, the more Dean complained that Gabriel was leading them on.

“There isn’t a right. There hasn’t been once since we left that bar, and I’m still not sure that we’re getting anywhere. Everything around here looks the same, Sam. For all we know, Gabriel’s playing another one of his games and we’ve been driving in circles.”

“He isn’t. We aren’t.” At least Gabriel hadn’t _looked_ like he was. He’d been more sincere than Sam had ever seen him, even in the warehouse– and he’d made sure that Cas didn’t get caught by another angel. If that wasn’t helping, Sam didn’t know what was. “Give him a chance, Dean. We need help and we haven’t seen that demon, Crowley, since he gave us the Colt.”

Dean looked like he wanted to say something, but he looked back at the road. “If we don’t find that right in the next half hour, we’re going back.”

 _Back where? There isn’t anywhere for us to go._

“Fine.”

Dean went to pull back onto the road but stopped, staring at the dashboard. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” There wasn’t anything to hear, unless he counted the wind, which occasionally rustled the long grass in the fields around them. They hadn’t seen another car, or even another person, since they’d left the bar.

“It sounded like–”

It seemed like the woman– girl, maybe –appeared from nowhere. One minute there was nothing outside the window, and the next second she was standing there, pointing a gun at Dean’s lap, a small smile curving her lips. “Switch off the engine and hold your hands up.”

Applying the smile he usually used the few times someone pulled them over, Dean turned to her, oozing charm, “Hey, look, I’m sure we can work something out–”

“Don’t try to sweet-talk me. Hands in the air, or I shoot. And I’m a really bad shot. I’m aiming for your thigh, but there’s a good chance I’ll hit something a lot more precious.” Dean looked alarmed, but switched off the engine and held up both hands, muttering something like _okay, take it easy_ and _you really don’t want to do that._

She looked like she really did. What little Sam could see of her was covered in a fine layer of the dusty dirt that made up the road. She must have crawled around the car to get to the driver’s side, since he hadn’t seen her approach. There was something else about her, something that didn’t quite fit with their surroundings. Her accent; it wasn’t American, but Sam was sure that he’d heard it somewhere before. “Now, what’re two guys like you doing all the way out here?”

From the way he was glancing between the gun and his lap, Dean was either trying to figuring out if he could grab the gun before she fired it, or if she was bad enough that she’d end up turning her threat into reality.

Sam spoke up. “We’re looking for someone. In fact, you might know him. He’s a few inches taller than you, he has light brown hair?”

“Half the guys in the state fit that description.” She lifted she gun a little higher and Dean winced. “Anything else?”

Groping for any possibilities, Sam blurted, “He has a dog and he likes teaching people lessons. He’ll do anything to make sure someone gets what they deserve, even if you don’t think it’s ethical.”

“Amber?”

Sam, Dean and Shotgun Girl– Amber, apparently –looked at the girl who was climbing over a fence a few meters behind the car. The fence had a large hole at the bottom, big enough for a person to slip through.

“Sofi, I told you to stay in the damn car, is that really so hard?”

“I got bored. We’re not all fascinated by missing persons report and shit like that.” Sofi walked right past her and peered at the car. “Cool car. Mind if I take a couple of photos?”

Happier now that the Impala was involved, Dean smiled at the girl but didn’t look at Amber at all. “Knock yourself out.”

“You’re the guys Gabriel mentioned, aren’t you?” Amber lowered the gun, her smile becoming more genuine and less threatening by the second. “Sam and Dean? He wasn’t lying about the car.”

Dean frowned. “You know Gabriel?”

“Know him? I’m pretty sure he’s the only con-man in the state that’s better than my family, not to mention that he’s never been caught. Listen– Sofi, hurry up, finish up and get back to the car before I send you to Mael or Riff-Raff –next time you come here, do me a favor and call ahead first. There’s nothing worse than having some weirdos turn up on your property without any warning. You’re lucky the rest of my family is away: I’m the nice one when it comes to trespassers. Billy and Ally would’ve shot you on sight.” Amber looked in the back, and didn’t blink at the books, burger wrappers and the remains of a makeshift first aid kit. Sam had no idea who Billy and Ally were, but he wasn’t in any hurry to find out, especially if Amber was the nice one.

Sofi took one look at them, smiled flirtatiously at Dean– very creepy since she was only about twelve –and climbed over the fence again. Amber called, “Put the camera back in the case and don’t you dare scratch it!” after her.

“She yours?” Dean asked.

“Oh, hell no. She’s my little sister and a nightmare.” Amber rummaged through her pocket and brought out a makeshift map of the area, different routes marked with different colours of pen. She ripped a small hole partway along the lime green line and handed it to Dean. “That hole is your car. Go along the road, take the first right you see, drive along for about half an hour, and you’ll get to a house. Don’t go into that one. Follow the road around the back and along the side of the field until you’re on the other side. Park in the garage– the code’s five eight seven two –and knock on the door. Gabriel was there when I left. Have a nice time and, if you have sex in one of the beds, change the sheets. Bye.”

Dean watched Amber leave, climbing over the fence and shouting at her sister, who seemed to have been listening in. “Did she think we were gay?”

“That’s what you took from that? Gabriel’s here, Dean. He wasn’t lying to me: he helped Cas, he’s here and he said he’d help us.” He didn’t mention the deal they’d worked out and hadn’t told Dean anything about it. Sam knew that he never would have agreed to come if he had. “He was telling the truth.”

“I don’t trust the guy. He’s screwed us over too many times for us to just act like he’s on our side just because he says he is. He could say we were on Mars and make it true, even if it killed us. Just because he says it, doesn’t make it safe.”

Sam was saved from having to reply by Cas appearing in the backseat, looking ruffled and irritated.

“There appears to be a barrier of sorts around the land,” he said, ignoring Dean’s complaints about him appearing and disappearing without giving them any warning. “It masks any indications of an angelic presence and prevented me from using my abilities beyond a point several meters ahead.”

“At least you didn’t get a gun pointed at your jewels,” Dean muttered.

Rather than explain what had happened, Sam said, “We found out why people don’t come here very often.”

Gabriel was bored. In fact, he was sure that if there’d been a word for how bored he was, he’d have to invent a new one just to convey _how_ bored he was. He couldn’t screw with the Delaneys’ heads now that they were all away, and he couldn’t teach any of the idiots nearby a lesson because a few of the more attentive angels– they were few and far between –had caught on to his games and were keeping an eye out for more. They didn’t know that it was him, but he couldn’t take any risks. Still, he hadn’t stayed hidden for so long without making sure that he hid himself from angels: Castiel had been lucky enough to have a connection with Dean Winchester which had enabled him to find him. None of the angels could have noticed what he was doing unless someone had told them. If he found out who’d blabbed, a wormhole or time-loop would be the _least_ of their worries. He was thinking Ancient Greece, or possibly somewhere Roman... Although he’d gone with Greece a few months ago and a repeat would be, well, even more boring than his current situation.

Contacting Kali was a possibility, but with the apocalypse so close, she was busy. Crowley, well, he was a demon, but he was a creature of his word. The Winchesters... No.

“They’re idiots,” he said, throwing a ball for Coyote, who caught it before it hit the floor, “but even they wouldn’t go around telling tales.”

And Castiel was on even worse terms with the other angels than Gabriel himself, which was saying something.

Coyote whined, dropping the ball at Gabriel’s feet and looking towards the door. Gabriel raised an eyebrow at the dog before snapping his fingers.

“Well, well, well,” Gabriel said as he appeared on the porch, leaning back against the door-frame, his hands in his pockets. “Look who’s come a-calling.”

The Winchesters hadn’t flinched when he’d appeared, which disappointed Gabriel more than it should have. He liked it when people were shocked or scared– it was funny. It was a lot harder to sneak up on people when they were used to his little brother popping in and out.

“Cut the crap and tell us what you want,” Dean started to approach him before Castiel stopped him with a hand on his arm, “because I’m just not buying that you’re going to help us.”

“Come on, why should you believe me? I’ve never lied to you before.”

“You pretended to be a Trickster.”

“Not really. I just let you believe I was one. You never asked if I was an angel.”

“Oh, sorry,” Dean said sarcastically. “The next time I meet someone, the first thing I’ll do is ask if they’re an angel, just in case.”

“Dean.”

Gabriel watched as Sam stared his brother down.

“The four bedrooms with open doors are empty. Pick one and stick with it.”

Castiel didn’t say anything, but he did look back at Sam as he and Dean started up the stairs. Sam hung back, staring at his boots.

“I’m sorry about him,” Sam muttered when Dean and Castiel were gone– Dean saying that Gabriel couldn’t be trusted and Castiel trying to be the voice of reason. “I think he wanted it to be a trick.”

Gabriel smirked at him. “I don’t care about him.”

Looking nervous, Sam smiled weakly and went upstairs after their brothers.

With the Winchesters unpacking upstairs, Gabriel stretched out on the couch and picked up one of the chocolate bars from the table. He hadn’t really expected Sam to turn up, not after the deal they’d made, and he’d definitely thought that Dean would refuse to come. It looked like they really _were_ that desperate.

Why had they even come? It wasn’t like they had any real chance of winning.

“Don’t go too far!”

David ignored his mom in favor of climbing over the low wall that surrounded their house. She always told him to stay close to the house, even in the middle of summer when it was light until late at night. He didn’t listen then and there was no way he was going to listen now, not when Jake’s parents were letting him have friends over for the first time since they’d accidentally set the fireworks off in the garage. Jake’s dad had gone mental because they’d scratched his brand new car.

 _They don’t even have to know that I stayed all night,_ he thought. Since the ‘accident’, they all called it that even though they all knew it hadn’t been one, his mom had worked nights and his dad had worked all day. They hardly saw each other, probably because they argued when they did and they never talked when they passed each other, one always at home to look after him. As long as his dad didn’t check his room, he could stay at Jake’s all night and get away with it. It was done all the time in movies; surely he could pull it off?

But Jake wouldn’t be home from practice for a couple of hours, so he’d have to stay outside until then. _If I go back, Mom won’t let me leave again_. Just like the last time. And the time before that.

“It’s not like staying out’s that bad,” David said to himself, looking around the empty fields, at the woods just over the other stone wall. The best thing about living in the middle of nowhere– he’d heard a woman call it the ‘ass-crack of nowhere’ and his mom had made a face and told her off for her language while David and Jake had sniggered –you could walk around for hours and never meet anyone, which made running away easier.

 _It makes killing yourself easier too_ , a little voice hissed in the back of his head. _I bet Sasha came out here because she knew that no one would find her until it was too late, because it was so beautiful and quiet._

“The ass-crack of nowhere is the best place to kill yourself.” No one ever said it, not even the woman who’d told him that he could think ‘ass-crack of nowhere’ as many times as he wanted because words in your head couldn’t be heard. They all said that Sasha had hurt herself when she’d been walking through the woods, but trees didn’t cut your arms like that. It was always an _unfortunate accident_ and people were always _sorry_ to hear about Sasha’s accident when they were really sorry that she’d–

What was that?

David stopped, looking around. It sounded like someone was crying. He turned towards the woods and saw a girl sitting on the wall, her head in her hands.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t move, so he walked over to her. His mom had always told him to be nice to people, especially after Sasha had... had the accident.

“Hello? Are you hurt?” David asked as he reached her, stretching one arm out so he could touch her shoulder. “Are you lost?”

She turned around.

She looked like Sasha. Her dark eyes were huge in her deathly pale skin. She was absolutely freezing, and it felt like he was putting his hand in the freezer to look for ice cream. There was something very, very wrong, though, because her eyes were sunken and dull, her long hair too tidy to be like Sasha’s (they’d brushed it and had it cut like his mom’s for the funeral and he’d thought about how she would have hated it all the way through.) She smiled and it was like an animal baring its teeth; sharp and white and nothing like his sister.

There were no tears.

Not-Sasha smiled at him and touched his cheek.

The last thing David saw before something dragged him into the darkness was that woman’s smile, her features twisting into something he’d never seen before, even in his nightmares, and a few snowflakes falling down towards him.  



	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Winchesters and Castiel turn to Gabriel for help, Sam makes a deal he’s sure he’s going to regret. He and Gabriel both struggle with outcome, and strange disappearances and stranger weather lead them into a hunt for something that’s affecting an entire state as it lures its victims into its clutches.

A low, buzzing drone cut right through the dream Dean had been having, and right through his skull as well. It felt like someone was trying to saw his head in half while he was awake.

“Dean,” Castiel said, the mattress shifting and creaking quietly when he leaned across the bed. “Your phone has been ringing almost constantly for the last four hours.”

Unwilling to move very far, Dean turned his head until he could just see Cas sitting on the other side of the bed, holding the phone in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. The angel looked almost as pristine as he usually did, but his hair was slightly mussed, marks on his cheeks from the creases in the pillows.

“Who is it?” Dean mumbled. Castiel looked puzzled. “The display. What’s the name? And why don’t you know how to do this?”

“You and Sam are the only ones who call me. There’s no need for me to read the display.”

That was pretty sad, even worse than Cas only having two humans and, now, his dick of a brother for company . He’d have to try and remember if there was anyone else whose number he could program into Cas’ phone. He grabbed the phone and squinted at the display.

Bobby.

Dean flipped it open. “Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“Hello to you too,” Dean muttered, shielding his face. A few rays of sunlight managed to get in through a gap in the curtains, despite the snow he could see falling, lighting up the room in narrow stripes. Cas’ eyes were lit up as he watched Dean intently. “We’re in Tennessee, not far from Birchwood and a little town that isn’t on any of the maps. I’m not getting a great feeling about this place. Oh, and we found the Trick- Gabriel living here.”

“Well I’ve got some work for you. A kid went missing further north and I need you to look in to anything that only takes children and affects the weather. I’d do it myself, but there’s a group of demons that I’m researching for Rufus.” An uncertain hesitation. “You found the Trickster, or whatever he really is?”

“Right where he said he’d be, but not before I got a gun pointed at my jewels by his friend.” One more reason to hate the place.

“You trust him?”

“I’ve done some stupid things, Bobby, but I’m not that much of an idiot. Of course I don’t trust him.” _Sam might_ , a traitorous voice whispered in the back of Dean’s head. _Sam came down here because he thinks that Gabriel’s going to help. He thought Ruby was helping before._

That had been different, though. Ruby was a demon and Sam had been drinking her blood. That had screwed with his judgment: it had to have.

Dean allowed himself to sink back down under the sheets. He didn’t have to trust the people to like beds with clean sheets and soft pillows.

 _Cas being on the other side doesn’t hurt_ , he thought as he watched the angel lean back against the pillows.

Later that morning Gabriel found himself busy explaining to Castiel why they’d have to go out and change some of the protection around the houses and fields at a table covered with plates piled high with banana, strawberry and vanilla pancakes. Dean, aside from shooting occasional glares at Gabriel, was eating the pancakes that Sofi had left in the fridge- as tempting as it was to poison Dean, Gabriel wouldn’t wish Amber’s cooking on anyone and had checked the note before putting them on the table. He had no idea what they’d do for breakfast after this, though.

“Tailor-made wards, little brother. Nothing and no one even close to angelic or demonic is going to be doing anything on this land without my say-so. And some blood in the walls.” Gabriel smiled and Sam, who had been eyeing the table of food with some apprehension, took one look at the jam and had second thoughts.

 _“Much to the surprise of the meteorologists, several inches of snow are expected to fall over–”_

“Why is it always blood?” Dean muttered into his pancakes, his mouth full. His complaints drowning out the rest of the weatherman’s predictions.. “Why not a photo or some hair? But, no, it’s always got to be blood.”

“It’s not _your_ blood. Why do you care so much?”

That got him no answers, except a frantic look from Sam. Gabriel rolled his eyes. Well, there was a much easier way to find things out when people weren’t talking.

Sam was almost screaming in his head, effectively masking Dean’s thoughts. _Don’t ask about it. Please don’t ask about it. I spend half my time trying to avoid bringing it up in any way. Don’t ask, please don’t ask._

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring him back in one piece. Wouldn’t want to ruin your fun, would I?”

“I’ve got holy oil in my bag and a lighter in my pocket,” Dean warned him, pushing a plate of pancakes across the table to Castiel, who stared at them as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “Try them. They’re good.”

 

  


“Cas.” Sam caught the angel just outside the back door, in the narrow passage between the house and the garage with a complicated lock and doors heavier than necessary. Dean hadn’t been happy to put the impala there, but they’d reasoned that it was better than leaving it outside when it had started to snow. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Brushing dust from the sleeve of his coat, Cas nodded. “Of course.”

“You- You know about the deal I made with Gabriel, don’t you?”

“I do.”

Nothing. No hint of what he was planning to do with the knowledge, just the rather unforgiving expression that Sam had grown accustomed to since they’d met. The usual hint of emotion that he’d started to develop lately was hidden.

“Are you going to tell Dean?”

“I do not believe that it’s my place. If you wish to reveal the conditions of your deal to your brother, you will do it yourself.”

“Sam,” Castiel started, but hesitated before continuing. “Gabriel may have lied to you and Dean many times, but I do believe that the majority of his intentions are pure.”

Sam repeated, “The majority.” That meant that Gabriel _was_ planning on following through on the deal. Not that he’d really thought that he wouldn’t: if there was one thing that Gabriel had always done, no matter who he’d been at that point, it was follow through on his promises, no matter how terrible they’d been.

“Gabriel is unconventional, in many ways, even by human standards. He is an unobserved phenomenon by angelic standards.”

 _That_ wasn’t a surprise. The way the angels worked didn’t look like it left much time for disobeying one order, let alone skipping out on your entire life. “So what is he? An archangel or a trickster?” Sam asked. _What is he when it comes down to making a choice? How do we know that he isn’t going to screw us over the second he gets a chance?_

Castiel pursed his lips a little as he thought about it. “He is something different. It’s entirely possible that contains only the most useful traits of both angels and tricksters.”

Somehow, Sam doubted that. Even if he only went off what they’d _seen_ rather than heard about, Gabriel already had quite a list of traits that were negative. He was manipulative, careless, took pleasure in the pain of others, judged everyone but himself and didn’t act like any angel that they’d met.

“We are not made to spend long periods of time here. We are not made to _take initiative_ as you would say.” He looked away from a split-second. “We are not made to stay away from our brothers and sisters.”

 _Isolation_ , Sam thought with a jolt. Years without any contact with your family, without being able to go home. He’d done it and, as much as he’d loved Stanford, he’d missed Dean. He’d even missed his dad.

He tried to imagine what it would be like to spend as long away from Dean, from Bobby and Cas, as Gabriel had spent away from his family. It made his chest feel hollow and cold, like someone had replaced his lungs with ice.

 

  


The wards weren’t that difficult, even with the light snowfall beginning to get heavier. There was a wall that went all around the property, including the fields, so the only time they had to repeat it was on the road. In fact, after the first part was done, once he had the blood, Gabriel wouldn’t even need Castiel with him- which was a good thing because he hadn’t stopped watching Gabriel like he was demon since they’d left the house.

It was while carving the final symbol– a modified angel banishing sigil –that Gabriel finally got sick of it. It was one thing to be watched, but another thing entirely to be judged and be able to hear every single thought.

“I didn’t demand anything,” Gabriel snapped, the symbol almost completed. “I offered to make a deal and Sam said yes. I didn’t make him do anything. He can back out anytime.”

Castiel held out his arm, his coat discarded on the wall, the sleeve of his shirt rolled up. “That may be true, but Sam will not ‘back out.’ He blames himself for bringing about the apocalypse and will do everything in his power to make amends, whatever the cost.”

 _Well it takes one to know one._

“Deano know about your part in it all?” There were three knives in the bag, but one hadn’t been sharpened for some time and another had what looked suspiciously like blood on the blade. There was no point in wasting his time cleaning or sharpening them when there was another.

“It’s not in our nature to make deals,” Castiel continued, ignoring the jab. He’d learned that from Dean, Gabriel was sure. “We are not demons.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t much of a difference between us these days. Would you rather try to keep both Winchesters alive long enough to give them a chance against Lucy? Or do you want to end up with two dead vessels who’ll be brought back when Michael and Lucy decide to have their face-off?”

Castiel said nothing, merely looked at him like he _wasn’t angry, just disappointed._

Castiel wasn’t the only one who’d learned from humans: Gabriel ignored him and set about searching for another subject.

He didn’t have to look far for one.

There was something wrong, Gabriel realized as soon as he pushed Castiel’s sleeve further up, exposing a long, jagged cut.

The gash on Castiel’s arm wasn’t fresh, that much Gabriel noticed immediately. The shallow sections at the ends were already healing over and there was a thin scab over the rest.

“How long?” At his brother’s blank look he said, “How long since you stopped healing yourself?”

“It was not my choice.”

Shit. Going native- living alongside humans, eating their food, sleeping with them- was one thing. Stopping healing yourself was stupid, but being unable to heal yourself... That was something else entirely. It took a long time, or a lot of anger, for that ability to fade.

“You must’ve really pissed them off if you’ve lost that much of your grace.”

Something that was almost a smile passed over Castiel’s lips and the emotion Gabriel felt radiating from his brother could have been pride, weak but there. “Yes, I believe I have.”

Gabriel laughed. “We should take bets on how long it’s going to take them to cut me off when they find out what I’ve been doing.”

“Minutes, if not seconds,” Castiel followed smoothly.

“You’ve been spending too much time around the Winchesters. Dean’s rubbing off on you.” It was possible that the flush that spread across Castiel’s cheeks was a trick of the light, but Gabriel shook his head anyway. “Literally and figuratively. I’ll have to give him the Big Brother Talk.” Castiel looked confused. “Tell him to keep his grubby hands off my little brother.”

“Perhaps Dean will deliver the same lecture.”

He only just managed to stop the flinch. “That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t intended to be.”

 

  


The air changed in a moment and all peace from the area was gone in an instant. Gabriel and Castiel stopped in the middle of the road: Gabriel with his shovel in hand, Castiel wrapping a bandage around his forearm to stem the flow of blood.

“Well that isn’t good,” Gabriel said, watching the air above them ripple, a sure sign of something trying to breach the protective wards.

But what?

It didn’t feel like a demon and, as far as he knew, there hadn’t been anything other than demons in the area since he’d moved into the house. It was likely to be one of their brothers. Damn. He’d been hoping to avoid a confrontation. Drawing his sword from what others would perceive as thin air, he let the shovel drop to the ground, shivering in the frigid air.

“Do me a favor and get out of here before they see you,” he called over his shoulder. “Tell Sam and Dean not to leave the house unless Dad’s banging down the door- actually, no, not even then. He can wait if He decide He wants to talk to us.”

He didn’t have to look to know that Castiel was already gone. He hid the sword beneath his jacket.

 

  


The angel appeared less than two feet in front of Gabriel, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. New to a vessel, then. One of the younger ones. Keen to please. Ziza, the name locked in the back of his head where his old life as an archangel had been sealed when he’d left.

“It’s not very nice to enter without knocking.” Beneath the conversational tone, he made sure to insert an underlying threat. Ziza regarded him with varying degrees of boredom, or maybe he just hadn’t figured out how to work his vessel’s face yet. Either way, Gabriel saw nothing positive there. “I’m using protection for a reason.”

“And we have been searching for you for a reason.” Ziza stepped forward and laid a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “We have searched for many years. Our brothers will be pleased when you rejoin us.”

 _Do you_ really _think I’m that stupid?_

Gabriel shrugged him off. He pursed his lips and folded his arms, tucking his hands down until he felt his right hand touch the sword. “Yeah. About that. Have you thought that the Winchesters and Castiel have the right idea? It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“I am simply following orders.”

“We’re supposed to follow His orders, and the last time I checked, He wasn’t up there to hand out any new ones. His original orders still stand. This planet, these humans, they aren’t ours to destroy, despite what Lucifer and Michael think. We don’t have to listen to them. _You_ don’t have to listen to them.”

Pursing his lips, Ziza looked towards the sky. “We have our orders. They may not be His, but we must follow them. We have no choice.”

“Not when He’s gone. There’s a choice now: He’s not giving us orders. Have you ever wondered why? Maybe he wants us to think for ourselves. It doesn’t have to end up like this. No one’s making us do anything. This is not what He planned. Ask yourself why He would want humans destroyed?”

Ziza kept looking up at the sky with a blank but oddly earnest expression that he’d seen on many of the less experienced angels. So eager to take part in battle, too inexperienced to know what it really meant. Children, really. Soldiers in a war that they were being manipulated into fighting. Gabriel sighed: there wasn’t another option. There _wasn’t another option_. His hand closed around the hilt of the sword; the sword heating in response to his touch. Ziza didn’t react.

“Come back with me, brother,” he said, lowering his gaze to meet Gabriel’s, serene but emptier than that of a corpse. The faint flicker of grace was not enough to overpower mindless loyalty.

“I’m sorry.” _You have_ no _idea how sorry I am_. The sword began to burn and Gabriel pulled it from his coat, sliding the blade between Ziza’s vessel’s ribs with ease. The other angel’s expression changed from serene, to shocked, to agonized as blood ran down the blade, down Gabriel’s hand, a trickle that was hot with inhuman energy. “I really am, but there’s no going back.”

The blinding light of his brother’s dying grace lasted for seconds, a testament to his relatively short life. Gabriel let the empty vessel fall to the ground, the host’s soul burned out by the angel’s death. Nothing more than a corpse, now, like Ziza was no more than atoms scattered across the galaxy and only an archangel or their Father could put him together.

Breathing hard, his breath fogging in the cold air, his vision blurred now, Gabriel wiped moisture that was _not_ tears from his eyes and began to search for the shovel he could have sworn he’d left feet away. He had a body to burn.

He left the sword on the road, speared into the dirt while he dug a ditch by the side of the road. It would make it easier to hide the body while it burned without having to try to move the remains afterwards.

 

  


It was growing dark when Gabriel eventually walked through the doorway and Cas tensed up as soon as he entered, watching the archangel’s movements with concern. The smell of burning flesh followed him in the door, directly at odds with the bloody sword he held in one hand and there was a smudge of ash under his right eye. He dropped an open box of matches on the coffee table, watching them scatter with a blank expression that would have looked more at home on Castiel’s face than Gabriel’s.

Dean was the first to speak, despite Castiel’s slow shake of his head.

“What happened?”

“What happened,” Gabriel echoed flatly, “is that I just saved your lives. Ziza was trying to bring our brothers here so that they could torture you and cut you into little pieces until you said both ‘yes’.”

With the words still hanging in the air like overripe fruit, just waiting to drop and split open, Gabriel turned away from them. When Castiel took a step forwards, Gabriel’s head snapped up, stopping him in his tracks. From his position and angle, Sam had no idea what Castiel saw, but it was enough to make the angel stop but not retreat. The two stared at each other until Dean made a nervous little movement a few feet behind Castiel. As if he’d been reminded that Sam and Dean were still in the room, he started and left the room, his movements precise and nothing like the relaxed, almost lazy, manner that Sam was used to.

Gabriel caught Sam’s eye on the way up the stairs, his meaning clear: _It’s time to make a payment._

 

  


The bedroom wasn’t what Sam had expected, although Sam had no idea what he _had_ been expecting. Probably something like the rest of the house: a room filled with photographs and paintings by someone else’s family and friends; framed sketches covered in childlike scrawls and little notes that meant nothing to him because he wasn’t a part of their life or world.

Instead he found a room with what looked suspiciously like a real Fabergé egg on the dresser and a painting that looked like an original da Vinci, or at least very close to the style Sam remembered from a few art classes he’d taken. There were no photos on the walls, or notes stuck anywhere. Despite the egg, painting and piles of candy that covered most surfaces, it was surprisingly impersonal, like so many of the motel rooms Sam had grown up in. A temporary base rather than somewhere someone really lived.

Gabriel wasn’t in the room, but Sam could hear the shower running in what he assumed was the en-suite bathroom. He slowly undressed, folding his clothes and leaving them on the chair beside the dresser, touching the Fabergé egg with his fingertips before he walked over to the bed.

 _I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing here._ If he backed out, he had no idea what would happen, but knowing Gabriel, it wouldn’t be pleasant. He really didn’t want to have to live through his brother dying repeatedly again. Sam lay down on the bed, resisting the urge to pull the sheets and thick blankets over his body, and waited, aware that the water had stopped running a few minutes ago.

Gabriel’s footsteps were light on the carpet and Sam didn’t know how close he was until he felt his fingers brush against his back. Sam jumped, startled by both the expected warmth of his skin, despite the room being cool, and the softness of the touch.

“You’re tense,” Gabriel admonished, and pressed his fingers into his back. Sam’s muscles twitched but stayed tense. “Relax.”

“This is part of a deal. I don’t have to relax,” Sam said, keeping his face pressed against the pillow.

“You don’t _have_ to, but it would be better for both of us if you did.”

“Tho-those dreams I had,” Sam gasped when Gabriel crawled up the bed until he was straddling Sam’s back, leaned over until he was resting his forehead against Sam’s shoulder, breath warm against his skin. That was weird. He’d expected it to be rougher, handsy and more like a bad one night stand than... whatever the hell Gabriel was doing. “The ones–”

“–with the shadows and the light and the deal you didn’t want to make at the time.”

He wasn’t even naked, which was even weirder: Sam could feel the cool slide of the silk boxers against his skin every time Gabriel moved, heard the thin material brushing across the cotton sheets.

“Yeah, those ones.”

Gabriel laughed quietly. “There wasn’t enough demon blood in your body for you to tap into what I really was, but there was enough for your subconscious to realize that something was wrong. Get up.”

Still on the dreams, Sam just had time to say, “What?” before Gabriel slid down until he could grab Sam’s hips and pull him into an awkward, half-kneeling position, and shove two of the pillows under his hips. “Oh.”

“Not _oh_.” A quick kiss where the old scar was from Jake stabbing him before Gabriel was straddling him again.

Hands warmer than any human’s had the right to be– _not human_ , Sam’s brain helpfully supplied –slid under the waistband of his boxers, tugging them down.

Hot breath against his skin as Gabriel leaned forward to press his lips to the back of Sam’s neck, teeth grazing the skin there- not a kiss because it didn’t feel like one, but something more than a simple touch, more than the first one had been, he was sure. Fingers skirting _down_ and _across_ like he was trying to map every piece of Sam’s body, and for the first time since they’d met, for the first time since he’d found out what Gabriel was, Sam thought _angel_ and really believed it.

“Stop thinking,” Gabriel said, curling his fingers around Sam’s cock, shifting just enough that Sam felt his skin pressing against his back, hot and hard even through the boxers.

Sam whined and tried to thrust into his grip, searching for more friction, or maybe just something faster and harder because Gabriel’s slow strokes were too slow. Not enough to make him come, but enough to push him close to the edge.

The slight dig of teeth into his skin, Gabriel groaning quietly was enough to push him right over, coming harder, thrusting into Gabriel’s fist while Gabriel said something that could have been a curse or a prayer.

 

  


The kiss was supposed to be rough; a claim of sorts, but Sam caught Gabriel’s lips and changed it into something gentle, almost chaste, pulling him down with one hand splayed across the back of his neck.

Gabriel pulled away, staring down at Sam, who just blinked up at him, expression vaguely blissful. His head was tilted back, a small smile curving his lips, gaze muzzy.

 _Oh, yeah_ , he thought. _This is going to get out of hand._

 

  


“ _Counting on your guilty conscience to save you?_ ” Amber asked when Gabriel picked up the phone. The line crackled loudly, probably because of a loose connection somewhere. He clicked it on to speakerphone and went back to trying to stop the pancakes from burning. Cooking, as he’d found out recently, was a lot harder when you had to do more than snap your fingers. Messier, too.

“I don’t have a conscience.”

“ _I know. That’s why I like you. There’s nothing worse than the ones who think that feeling bad about something’ll stop them from- Sofi, put that down before you cut your bloody fingers off._ ” There was a scuffle on the other of the line before Gabriel heard Sofi scream something and Amber tell her that if she didn’t shut up, she was being sent to stay with one of their brothers. Breathless, Amber continued. “ _Sorry about that. She’s been a little bitch since we left. How’re your friends?_ ”

Gabriel pushed the empty beer cans into the bin, nudging a stray gun aside to put a plate down. There was a small puddle of gun oil on the table. “They’re not my friends.”

“ _Oh, of course, they’re your ‘casual acquaintances’ or some shit like that. Come on. Spill your guts or I’ll cut you open when I get back and make you do it for real._ ”

“I helped them before.” It wasn’t really a lie, strictly speaking. He had been trying to help them, in a way. He just hadn’t told them. Or done it in a very nice way. Twice. From opposing positions.

They probably had a reason to distrust him, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and they were definitely on their knees now.

Sam on his knees. Now that was an interesting thought...

“ _You still there?_ ”

Castiel was his brother and, while they’d worked together many times, they’d never been as close as he had been with Michael and Lucifer; Gabriel was sure that Castiel still resented him for leaving. If he hadn’t before, he definitely did now.

“They didn’t take it very well,” Gabriel, considering that being staked and trapped in a ring of burning holy oil wouldn’t translate for someone who wasn’t a hunter or an angel. Probably something along the lines of being doused in petrol while someone held a match and told you to run if you were invincible.

“ _That’s boring. I thought they were enemies turned friends or something. Anything interesting happen? Any idiots dumb enough to trespass?_ ”

“Nope,” he lied. The sword had been stowed in the bottom of the closet in his bedroom and he hadn’t glanced at it since he’d left it there. It wasn’t like he needed to go into the closet for anything, after all. “The most exciting thing is the snow.”

“ _I think I heard about that. Well, do me a favor and call me if anything happens, or if anyone turns up. Feel free to shoot them if they’re not on the list._ ” Sofi shouted in the background and Amber groaned. _“Hopefully before I’ve been involved in a murder/suicide-by-cop. I’ll call you when she stops acting like a bitch. Or after I kill her.”_

 _“I am not acting like a bitch!”_

 _“I’ve got to go and rob some nice people now. I’ll see you later.”_

The click of the disconnection was followed by a shrill beep.

“She sounds nice,” Sam offered from the doorway. Thankfully, he was fully dressed and the post-orgasmic haze was gone from his eyes. He was also avoiding Gabriel’s eyes, and Gabriel kicked himself for finding that anything close to endearing- then wondered how much of the conversation he’d heard. “I mean, compared to when we met her. The lack of a gun helps. How did you find her, anyway? Why are you even here?”

Gabriel offered Sam one of the half-full bags of chips. “I saved her life. She’s human, doesn’t believe in demons, has loose morals and doesn’t care who she cons when they have money: I like her. Dean and Castiel still upstairs?”

Shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, Sam glanced towards the stairs. “Sharing a room. Could they have heard us... last night?”

“Not a chance. They’d only hear us if I wanted them to, and I don’t. Works the same the other way. I don’t want to know what our brothers sound like when they come.”

Sam screwed up his face but was quickly distracted by the food.

“Are you making breakfast?” He eyed the pancakes hesitantly, as if he expected them to turn into chainsaw-wielding maniacs in front of him. Gabriel wasn’t very surprised: not that long ago, he would have done it.

Flipping one pancake out of the pan and on to the closest plate, Gabriel offered it to him. “I’m not a great cook, but it’s these or something from the cupboards, and the last time I ate the cereal here, I almost choked on a USB stick.”

“Why don’t you just...” Sam snapped the fingers of his free hand, using his fork to cut a piece off the edge of the pancake.

“It’s too obvious. I’ve got to stay under the radar. They’ll even be looking for the little things now after last night. Nowhere left for me to hide since Lucy got out. I thought you’d appreciate that.” Sam looked away. You didn’t need to be an angel to feel the guilt radiating off him in waves.

 

  


“Have you noticed anything strange since you met him?” Sam asked. Gabriel stopped just before he reached the room. If Sam was going to go searching through things that were none of his business, there was nothing stopping Gabriel himself from doing the same.

Amber’s voice came through clearer than it would have on the phone. “Weird’s my life. I’ll need a bit more to work with.”

Why was she calling?

Hesitating, Sam looked at the trailing telephone cord, tangling it around his fingers. “People appearing or disappearing...” _Zombies? Alien abductions? People spontaneously bursting into a rendition of Queen’s greatest hits?_

Gabriel muffled a snort with his hand. That was another one he’d have to remember. In another life, Sam Winchester would have made a great trickster. Or maybe in this life, if they got out of this mess alive.

 _“He saved my life when we met. Pretty sure he appeared out of nowhere.”_

Sam’s expression grew bright with tentative hope. “Okay, that’s great. Thanks for your help.”

 _“Any time. Do me a favor, though, and remember to tell Gabriel to stay away from the garage if the system packs in: it’s a bastard in this weather. The doors don’t catch right without the mechanisms working- I don’t know how to fix it, so just tell him to leave it alone- and the doors are heavy. They can crush bones if you get caught between them, as one of my brothers would testify to. Years of physiotherapy and he still can’t snap his fingers- wait, there was one thing.”_

Sam’s face fell. “What?”

 _“I had a weird dream not long after we met. Have you ever seen Groundhog Day?”_

“Yeah.”

 _“It was like that. It was about the... job... I was to do the day after. I’d been going to go in without a plan and until I made a plan in the dream, people kept getting killed.” Amber paused. “More like a nightmare. I went in with a plan on the day.”_

“Thanks.” After saying goodbye and assuring her that they’d stay away from the garage, Sam set the phone back in its cradle, leaning on the table for a moment before turned around just as Gabriel walked in. “You put her in a time loop, didn’t you? I thought she was your friend.”

He kept his chin up, almost smiling. “She needed to learn a lesson. I made sure that she did. Amber’s lucky that I let her think it was a dream. She got twelve people killed dozens of times before the message got through.”

Sam shook his head. “You’re supposed to be an angel-”

“In case you haven’t noticed, bucko, I am an angel. It’s where I got the brains, wings and big shiny sword from.”

“You’re supposed to do the right thing, not screw with people because you think they need to learn a lesson. Cas, he’s helped us, and he’s going to fall because he’s doing the right thing. You- you spend your time trapping people in time loops and having them probed by aliens because you think that they deserve it.”

He snapped, “The last time I did the right thing, I got staked. Several times! It can’t kill me, but I’m enough of a trickster that it hurts like hell! Those projections have a nasty habit of throwing sensations back at me.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked, moving closer.

“I tried to help you and you put a stake through my chest! What part of that don’t you understand?”

“Help us? You call torturing me for months ‘help’? I’m beginning to think that Dean’s right: you are a coward. If your idea of help is putting someone through emotional hell rather than come out and get involved in the fight that was yours to begin with, then you’re not much of angel, or at least not the one everybody reads about. At least not anymore. What happened to you?”

Castiel chose that moment to appear less than a foot away, holding a stack of books. Sam relaxed, reaching out to take the books.

“What are these?”

“Bobby requested that I bring these back. He believes that the creature behind the abductions in New York is listed within. He included a detailed description of the injuries its victims sustained as well as photographs.” The list was written over three sides of paper. “Am I interrupting something?”

“The usual,” Gabriel said before Sam could open his mouth. “I want Sam to say yes; he’d rather be set on fire. Which I can always arrange if he really wants to go through with it.”

On anyone else, the slight twitch would have been a look of utter disgust. At least it meant that Castiel would stay out of it.

Beginning to discuss the creature- already vetoing vampires and werewolves before he looked at the list- Sam left with Castiel without looking back. Gabriel was left alone in the room, adrenalin still thrumming through his body, but mixed with something else, hotter and sharper. Coyote whined, pushing against his leg.

“Don’t you start,” he warned distractedly.

He couldn’t say that he hadn’t expecting it, but, still, it had hurt more than Gabriel had thought it would.  



	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Winchesters and Castiel turn to Gabriel for help, Sam makes a deal he’s sure he’s going to regret. He and Gabriel both struggle with outcome, and strange disappearances and stranger weather lead them into a hunt for something that’s affecting an entire state as it lures its victims into its clutches.

“We’ve been here for two weeks and we’ve got nothing.” Dean threw the book of Norse myths and legends onto the table. “No hunts, no demons. The people around here are weird, but there’s nothing supernatural here. Gabriel hasn’t done anything useful.”

Castiel caught Dean’s gaze. “He prevented one of our brothers from capturing me twice and, had I been caught, you would have been taken to Michael. Consider he has very few reasons to help us, he’s done much.”

Okay, Dean had to hand it to him: Cas had a point. A messed up one, considering that they had no idea _why_ Gabriel was helping them, but it was a point. “I’ll give him that, but I don’t like him helping us. What makes you so sure that he isn’t going to turn around and lead Michael and the other dicks right to us?”

“He’s my brother. Despite his past actions, I trust him, as you do your brother.”

That was a low blow. Yes, Sam had fucked up, but they’d grown up together. Sam was all Dean had sometimes. Gabriel hadn’t even been around for most of Cas’ life, or whatever passed for an angel’s life. Sam hadn’t known that some of what he’d been doing was wrong, he hadn’t meant to release Lucifer. Gabriel had known _exactly_ what he’d been doing, and he’d done it anyway. “It’s not the same. Sam-”

“-Made a mistake that could have been avoided, had he listened to you rather than Ruby,” Castiel handed him a second book of myths and legends- Japanese this time- and motioned for him to read it. “Gabriel never liked taking orders from any who wasn’t our Father.”

Brilliant. So their only ally who was a fully powered-up angel was an archangel who didn’t like listening to others.

 _We’re screwed_ , Dean though and flipped open the book to the introduction. The text was tiny. He groaned. Maybe it was too much to hope that Gabriel’s next game would involve all the textbooks and logs disappearing.

 

“Is there even anything we can do?”

Gabriel tossed the ball into the air and caught it easily, repeating it until Sam’s eyes were starting to hurt from following. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, everyone’s getting something out of this.”

“Is that all you have to say? _Maybe_?”

“Sorry, Sammy, but I’m not gonna wax poetic about the world burning down around us all. It’s not my thing.” Gabriel was so close to human that it was difficult to connect him with Cas most of the time. While Cas never looked quite right pretending to be human, Gabriel didn’t even need to pretend, not really. He’d spent much of the last few weeks sprawled across the couch, one hand dipping into the bag of M&Ms at his side while he occasionally pointed the other at the television like a remote control. _Easier than actually moving,_ he’d called it.

“Sorry,” Sam snapped. “I forgot that your _thing_ is putting people through hell because it’s fun.”

Gabriel froze, ball in hand. It was one of the few times Sam had seen him look surprised. “You think that’s why I did it? For fun?”

“You killed the only member of my family that I had left. Just because your family isn’t-” Sam stopped mid-sentence, staring at Gabriel in shock as he realised what had happened. “You killed my family because you were angry at yours.”

“Shut your mouth,” Gabriel said, voice low but deadly, and he was the Trickster again, sharp words and cruel smiles.

There was an underlying threat, a promise of _or else_ , but Sam had never been one to leave well enough alone, because he understood now. “They never looked for you, did they? You said yourself, God’s not there anymore. What use is the messenger if there’s no one sending any messages?”

Gabriel’s expression darkened with every word as he advanced upon Sam, fingers curling around Sam’s wrists.

“You act like Lucifer’s the worst, like he’s the only one who’s cruel, but you’re no better than him.”

“I was trying to stop the apocalypse,” Gabriel hissed, pushing Sam back against the bed so hard that the frame dug into his thighs, biting into but not quite breaking the skin. There would be bruises there tomorrow.

“You told me that it would end with us, that we had to play our part, that there wasn’t any way to stop it,” Sam gasped, even as Gabriel started to unbutton his shirt with casual, unhurried movements which were a sharp contrast to the barely veiled threat in his voice. “You told me we didn’t have a choice.”

“I lied. You should be used to that by now.” His jeans, unbuttoned and unzipped, with Gabriel motioning to him to lift his hips, stroking his thumb over the exposed skin, making Sam jump.

“You think you’re the only one whose family never came after him. Well, you’re not. I-”

Gabriel pushed him over onto his stomach, pinning him down with one hand against his back. “Don’t compare us.”

“Why, because you’re so much better than me?”

“No. I’m so much _worse_ that your tiny little brain would burn itself into oblivion if I tried to explain every little detail.”

His hands were warm, and Sam could feel the wet heat of the lube before Gabriel even touched him, rubbing slow circles around his hole. Sam held onto handfuls of the sheets, but spread his legs to give Gabriel better access. It was different. It felt like it was supposed to be less than it actually was, like Gabriel hadn’t included something in the deal but it had somehow slipped in when they hadn’t been looking.

“Ready?” Gabriel whispered, and a lot of the danger in his voice fell away. Sam took a deep breath and nodded.

Gabriel tangled his fingers in Sam’s hair. “Why did you say yes?”

Raising his head inches from the pillow, Sam replied, “I want it to be over.”

Maybe the echo of Gabriel’s own words was conscious, or maybe it was a piece of the truth that they shared between them. Either way, Gabriel looked away from Sam, at the tangle of clothing on the floor.

Gabriel didn’t have _feelings_ for Sam. He couldn’t. That jolt in the pit of his stomach? It was adrenalin, the thrill of the chase, what had been mixing with anger and acting as the fuel to drive him since he’d left Heaven.

He didn’t care about him. He _couldn’t_. You didn’t survive as an archangel, and then a trickster, by letting emotions you weren’t supposed to have rule you.

Behind him, Sam curled up close enough that Gabriel could feel the heat radiating off him.

“What’re you doing?”

“You’re warm,” Sam murmured, “and I think the heating’s broken again.”

 

“Bobby’s on speakerphone,” Dean said as soon as Sam and Gabriel walked into the room. He and Castiel were sitting on the couch, sitting too close for them to have just been talking before Bobby had called. Gabriel perched on the edge of the armchair Sam chose. “He’s got a hunt for us.”

“Listen up, all of you,” Bobby said. “Some kids have gone missing nearby, and I need you to see if you can find out what it is.” He listed seven places where the kids had gone missing while Gabriel cycled through the creatures he knew went after children. None of them looked very likely. Half of them didn’t exist now, and the others were rare or from other countries.

“Preys on children,” Castiel made a note on the notebook he’d claimed days after he’d arrived. “Is there anything else?”

“Not that I know of, but you never know what they’ve left out because they think I’ll call them crazy. Call if you get something.”

While Dean, Castiel and Sam started to talk about possible monsters- _”Vampires?” “Not unless they’ve started taking them young.” “Werewolves?” “In my experience, werewolves do not travel that far.” “Well you think of something, then!”_ \- Gabriel stared out of the window at the snow, which was quickly becoming a blizzard.

“Snow,” he muttered, remembering what Amber had said in the conversation he’d listened to. She’d said the snow was weird. Why? Heavy snow, cold weather... “Dean, have you still got ‘Japanese Myths and Legends’?”

Dean dug around in the pile until he brought out the battered hardcover. “You think it’s Japanese?”

“What’s a Japanese creature doing here?” Sam asked.

“It’s the apocalypse. Last hurrah. Everything’s hungry. If she thinks she’s going to die soon, she isn’t wasting her time having kids or shacking up with guys she spares. She wants to take down as many people as possible.” Gabriel flipped through the book until he reached the page of information with the accompanying diagram of a young woman with long black hair and pale skin. “Now _that_ is a flattering image. They take whatever form their victims would follow, then turn into monsters when they’ve got you right where they want you. I’ve seen them look like rotting carcasses because they know it’s going to get them their lunch.”  
 

“Dean, it’s not going to open,” Castiel watched Dean panted and strain as he tried to wrench open the garage door, swearing repeatedly.

Dean let go of the crowbar, which remained lodged in the small gap between the heavy metal doors. “Gabriel, snap your fingers.”

The archangel looked from Dean to the doors. “Nope. Not worth it. The car will never make it through the snow. I know it’s your one true love and all, but it’s going to get stuck halfway down the road and we’re going to spend hours digging it out. I haven’t slept for thousands of years: I’m tired enough, without having to do that.”

Castiel stepped to the side, pulling Dean with him. He was just in time as the crowbar hit the ground with a clang, right where Dean’s toes had been a second ago.

“There’s a truck in Billy and Ally’s garage that they won’t mind us using.”

Dean looked like he’d been insulted.

“How do we know you’ll be able to scare her off?” Sam asked Gabriel, trying to ignore the quiet complaints Dean was still making about the truck. Even leaving the thing by the road almost an hour ago had done nothing to calm him.

“I don’t. But what’re the chances that she won’t run screaming from an archangel?” Gabriel smirked. “She’s minor league. Me? I’m one of the best, and as soon as she realises what she’s up again, she’ll be out of here quicker than Alexander the Great was on his ‘friend’.”

Sam decided it was better not to ask. “What if she doesn’t?”

Gabriel said something in a language Sam suspected didn’t even exist anymore. At his questioning look, Gabriel added, “It means we’re screwed. Actually, it means that we’ll be eaten by the beast, but it’s the same thing, really.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Who was _trying_ to make you feel better?” Gabriel looked around, eyeing the snow-heavy trees. “This is where she was last.”

Dean spoke up, finally shutting up about the truck, “How can you tell?”

Gabriel closed his eyes and tilted his head back. “How can you _not_ tell? It’s everywhere. Split up and start looking for anywhere she could be hiding. I’ll see if I can find the kids.”

He disappeared without another word. Sam stared at the empty space before he started looking for anything that could have signified that someone had been there, but the snow was perfectly smooth with no footprints or any other disturbances.

“Anything?” he called to Dean and Castiel. Castiel was getting further into the woods, while Dean kept close to where Gabriel had disappeared.

Dean shook his head. “Trees, a couple of pornos that could’ve come from the treehouse we saw a while back. No yuki-whatever.”

“Yuki-onna,” Sam corrected halfheartedly, kicking up a pile of snow to make sure that there wasn’t anything hidden under it. Nothing. Again. He sighed. Hopefully Gabriel would be back soon and they’d be able to either move on to another place, or go back and try to find out where they’d gone wrong. He turned around to ask Dean what he thought, but stopped dead when he saw Dean. Or rather what was behind Dean.

The snow was stirring, drifting together and slowly rising into something was a recognisable creature.

“Dean, behind you!”

The yuki-onna was faster, grabbing him before he had a chance to raise the gun or the knife.

Milky white light passed between them as Dean struggled weakly against her, dropping the knife. Frowning, the yuki-onna threw Dean backwards with ease, turning away before he hit the tree and fell to the ground, motionless. The gun disappeared into the snow drift.

“Dean!” Sam yelled over the howling wind, staggering through the snow towards his brother. Gabriel appeared several feet away. “Gabriel, where’re the kids?”

“In a cave a few miles north, but I can’t get through: she’s got the cave covered with sigils. The area’s full of the things. Every time I try and get in, they keep throwing me back here.” Gabriel looked towards Castiel, eyes widening in horror. “No!”

Sam turned his attention to the other angel, tightening almost numb fingers around the knife. The yuki-onna pressed him back against the tree and lifted her hands to his face.

She pressed one hand against Cas’ cheek. There was nothing, none of that strange ghostly light that had flitted between her and Dean, just something weak and watery-looking that stung Sam’s eyes. Cas swayed slightly but didn’t fall and the Yuki-onna didn’t throw him back like she had done with Dean. Instead she just looked at him, tilting her head to one side.

“What are you?” she asked, her upper lip curling back to reveal razor-sharp teeth, her eyes glowing faintly.

Dean was still scrambling to his feet, the side of his face scraped and blood staining the snow as it dripped from his hand. Sam went to grab the gun, to do something, but Gabriel got there first. He ripped the yuki-onna’s hand from Cas and she vanished in a blast of icy air and snow.

“Where the hell did she go?” Dean yelled, brushing snow from his hair. Gabriel didn’t move, stock still in the middle of the field, looking from side to side.

“Stay where you are,” he snapped when Dean took a step towards Cas. “She’s still here somewhere. I can feel her.”

Sam pushed his almost numb fingers into his pockets, shivering. Is it getting colder? Dean blew on his hands and Castiel shifted uncomfortably, obviously confused. The air began to twist, shimmering and fluttering like it was something alive; the wind whipped up snow and they held up their hands to shield their eyes.

The only one who saw her was Sam, who yelled, “Gabriel!” as soon as he saw the figure begin to take shape behind him, but it was already too late.

She pressed one hand to his cheek in the exact same way she’d done with Castiel, but there was something wrong. Her hand started to glow brightly, light pouring from Gabriel’s eyes and mouth, and Gabriel looked scared. No, more than scared, something Sam had never thought he’d see on Gabriel’s face: absolute terror.

“Close your eyes,” Castiel shouted and Sam had no idea if he was talking to him or Dean, but he closed his eyes anyway, falling to his knees in the snow, feeling for a knife or a gun, or anything that could help. “Close your eyes!”

Even with his eyes shut, Sam could still see that expression of shock on Gabriel’s face, that utter terror that was burned into his eyelids.

His surroundings flashed bright white and everything started to burn as Gabriel screamed.  



	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Winchesters and Castiel turn to Gabriel for help, Sam makes a deal he’s sure he’s going to regret. He and Gabriel both struggle with outcome, and strange disappearances and stranger weather lead them into a hunt for something that’s affecting an entire state as it lures its victims into its clutches.

  
In the seconds after the blast of light and Gabriel screaming- _still echoing in his ears because he’d never thought that an archangel would scream like that for any reason_ \- Sam stayed on the ground, fingers going numb as he dug them into the snow. A strange, otherworldly ringing filled the air, making his ears hurt and he was sure that no human was supposed to hear that noise.

When the ringing eventually stopped, everything was deathly silent, the cold wrapping around them like a second skin. Sam raised his head and saw Dean first. His brother was in a similar position, a thin layer of snow already settling on him.

“Cas?” Dean called, scrambling to his feet, knife in hand. “Cas?”

Castiel raised his head from where he was kneeling in the snow beside- Sam’s heart dropped a few inches. Gabriel was curled in a foetal position in front of Cas; his skin unnaturally pale; a thin, drying, trickle of blood coming from his ear. Around him, huge shadows that Sam thought were wings, twitched dangerously.

Leaving Dean to find the knives and try and dig the gun out of the snow, Sam knelt down at the other side of Gabriel, pressing his fingers to his neck to check for a pulse. It was there, strong, but maybe that was normal.

 _I don’t even know if an angel’s vessel has a pulse. Maybe it takes a while for the heart to catch up with the angel. Maybe he’s dying and the vessel just hasn’t realised it yet._

Nothing and no one alive could be that cold, he was sure.

Sam asked, “Is he...?” but was unable to finish the question. The yuki-onna hadn’t even had a sword: she couldn’t have killed him, it wasn’t possible. Angels could only be killed by a sword. Gabriel had told him only hours ago. He _couldn’t_ be dead.

Castiel shook his head. “He isn’t dead. The yuki-onna absorbed his grace.”

“What?” Dean dug another of the knives out of the snow and threw it into the bag. “She did _what_?”

“I knew that she could absorb a human’s life force, but it didn’t occur to me that she could do the same to an angel.” Castiel’s attention drifted across to Dean, who was straying further from them in search of the weapons. “Dean, we have to go before it returns.”

“The gun-”

“The gun can be replaced. I’m sure that the owner would prefer a lost gun over a corpse.” He fixed Dean with a look that made Sam look away, but at least Castiel didn’t say anything about the way Sam’s hand had remained at Gabriel’s throat, fingers across his pulse point, right across the faint beat, half afraid that if he let go then his theory would be proven correct.

Sam was still touching Gabriel when Castiel touched Dean’s forehead with one hand and Gabriel’s with the other.

“This is bad news.”

Dean threw another log on the fire- the heating had stopped working sometime after they’d left to go after the yuki-onna and they hadn’t managed to fix it- and sat back on his heels. Castiel was standing by the window, staring out at the snow that obscured everything, the fall bordering on a blizzard. He’d been there since they’d arrived back, and didn’t appear to intend moving anytime soon.

On the couch beside Sam, Gabriel stirred but didn’t wake, burrowing deeper under the pile of blankets, shivering violently.

“He’s not getting better,” Dean remarked.

“He’s not getting worse either, that has to count for something.” Sam threw another blanket over Gabriel. There were a few more in one of the bedrooms upstairs, and he’d seen some in the house where they’d taken the knives and guns from earlier. If need be, he’d walk across the field to get them. “Is she still nearby?”

Castiel studied the snow for another minute before he said, “No. She’s left the land, but it’s likely that she’s still nearby.”

 _Killing more children,”_ was left unsaid, but was certainly implied. Sam pressed his forehead against the back of the couch.

Sam jumped when Gabriel said, “Something’s wrong,” and snapped around to stare down at him.

“It’s quiet,” Gabriel mumbled, eyelids fluttering before he opened his eyes and stared up at Sam, his smile vague. “They’re quiet. I can’t hear them.”

Dean and Castiel exchanged a look.

“Can’t hear who?”

Curling up beneath the blankets, Gabriel squirmed until he was pressing up against Sam: the archangel was freezing cold. “Any of them. It’s so _quiet_. It’s like they’re all gone.” A pause while he tried to get closer. “It took my grace.”

Not a question. He already knew what had happened. Sam swallowed. He didn’t want to tell him the truth, didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news again. It was always bad news. _Lucifer’s on the loose. The world’s ending. We need your help._

“It’s okay. They didn’t get all of it. We’re okay.” He sat up, leaning back against the couch, blankets making it halfway to the floor before he grabbed them and piled them up again. There was a barely noticeable tremor when Gabriel raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

All the windows in the room shattered simultaneously.

“Or not. Huh,” he said, looking from the glass to his fingers with an expression of great amusement mixed with interest. “I was right.”

Sam asked, “About what?”

“Turns out you need quite a bit of grace to use your grace. I never did get a chance to test out that little theory back home.”

Brushing shards of grass and some stray snowflakes from his hair, Dean shot him a withering look. “I’m so glad that you were right, and maybe you can write about it later, but that means we’ve got a bigger problem here.” He reached forward to pull a sizeable piece of glass from Castiel’s hair, dropping it onto the pile on the table. “If you can’t even- what were you trying to do, anyway?”

“I left some Skittles on the dresser upstairs.” He shrugged. “Didn’t seem like that big a job until I tried it.”

“Great. If you can’t get candy, how the hell are we going to take this thing down?”

Sitting up shakily, Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not my problem anymore.”

“Wait, what? You can’t just skip out on us-” Sam began.

“The deal’s off, buddy. You made a deal with an archangel: the archangel part of me? It’s gone. The yuki-onna took it. There isn’t anything left that’s worth using. The only reason there’s anything left at all is because it’s tainted: posing as a trickster for so long leaves its mark. What’s left isn’t grace, not anymore. I’m a trickster, now, and you don’t _want_ my help,” Gabriel said as he left, leaving Dean looking confused and Castiel looking unsettled.

“What deal?” Dean asked. Castiel looked between the brothers as Sam searched for an answer that wouldn’t tip Dean off.

“I told him we wouldn’t try to kill him or lead any other angels to him if he helped us,” he lied smoothly. Dean didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue.

 

So far, the only plans they’d come up with included twelve variations of the same theme: run like hell and hope that the yuki-onna decided that it didn’t feel like living. They weren’t very good plans, which was why Sam went looking for Gabriel. It didn’t take him very long to find him, hiding out in his bedroom.

“Go on, say it,” Gabriel said from where he was sprawled across the bed, throwing and catching a ball, occasionally fumbling with it in a way he hadn’t the other times Sam had seen him doing so. The half empty bottle of whiskey lay on the floor by the dresser, the remaining liquid almost glowing in the moonlight.

“Say what?”

“That I deserve it.” He missed the ball and it hit the floor before rolling under the dresser. Gabriel made no move to recover it. “That, after denying what I was for so long, that I deserve to be something else, that I deserve to be human. It’s payback. Dad might not be around, but He’s still screwing us over. And He has a sick sense of humour.”

Sam sat down on the edge of the bed, rubbing the sheets between his fingers. They felt soft, worn, as if they’d been through a washing machine hundreds of times. Comforting. “That must be where you get it from.”

Gabriel huffed a laugh. “Oh, yeah. I got all His best traits; didn’t you notice?”

They were silent, both of them staring at the ball until Sam spoke again.

“You don’t deserve it, you know. I mean, you were awful to us, and if I could undo everything that happened the second time we met, I would, but you don’t deserve this.”

“I rebelled. The only difference between me and the littlest spark of light out there? Is that he was told not to. This should have happened a long time ago.” He kicked one of the blankets, now abandoned, off the bed. “It’s the apocalypse and it looks like my debts are finally being paid. How’s that for a kick in the balls?”

Sam didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead, he watched the unconscious, twitchy movements of Gabriel’s fingers against the sheets. It looked almost like he was about to snap when he remembered what had happened and tapped his fingers against the bed instead. Seconds later it happened again. And again. He reached across and took hold of Gabriel’s wrist, squeezing gently.

“The deal’s off, Sam,” Gabriel whispered. “You don’t have to.”

“And if I want to?” The archangel- was he still an archangel, even with most of his grace gone?- was cold and he felt so much more fragile beneath Sam’s fingers, as if he’d break in an instant if Sam held on too tightly. “If I want to sleep with you for another reason.”

“Then you’re an idiot.” Gabriel hesitated. “How do you know I won’t turn on you?”

“Because I know you.”

“You know me?”

In a twisted way, Sam knew that he did. Gabriel was a trickster and an archangel. He could be their most valuable asset, but if they pissed him off, he’d turn like a cobra and sink his teeth in and kill them. He’d tried to leave his family and had been dragged back into the mess.

“I know you.” Sam met his eyes and pinned his wrist to the bed, surprised when Gabriel didn’t even struggle, just flexed his fingers until he could grab hold of the sheet. “I know why you did it. I don’t forgive you, though.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

He leaned closer, squeezing Gabriel’s wrist until he knew there’d be a bruise there in the morning, and waited until their lips were less than an inch apart before he whispered, “And I don’t love you.”

Gabriel laughed, not even struggling, but relaxing until Sam could have done anything he wanted to him.

Sam kissed Gabriel, pushing him back against the pillows, kissing him like he could lick every trace of alcohol from his mouth, his entire body. Gabriel didn’t mind him trying.

“Feels different,” Gabriel murmured, tugging at Sam’s hair until it was tangled around his fingers enough that one _pull_ had them pressed so close that there was hardly an inch between them.

“How?”

“Like it’s really me doing it.” Sam squeezed his wrist together. Fragile bones under his skin, human and breakable and part of Sam _wanted_ to break him, to see how many pieces an archangel could be split into.“Grace muffles things. It feels real now. Before it was just sex, just an orgasm, all those endorphins. Fucking makes it easier to feel it.”

Sam had wanted to meet an angel when he’d been a kid. From the moment he’d found out that supernatural creatures existed, he’d wanted to find an angel and ask every question he’d ever had. He didn’t want to ask Gabriel anything, not even what he’d done to all those people, how he’d ended up so far from his brothers, how long it had taken No, he wanted to pick him apart piece by piece, but he didn’t want to know _how_ or _why_ because he already knew.

Whatever Sam wanted, Gabriel seemed willing to give, or maybe he was just curious enough that he couldn’t say ‘no’, even if he wanted to on some level. He _let_ Sam pin him and spread his legs, pressing fingers into him, and Gabriel whined involuntarily, deep in his throat like he wanted to keep the sound to himself, and arched closer.

Sharp, desperate little gasps and the dig of nails scratching his shoulders and back, scraping his skin raw, teeth catching on his skin occasionally. Gabriel’s skin was cold, but _inside_ he was blazing hot and tighter than Sam had expected; Sam had no problem believing that Gabriel had fucked him simply because it was easier to break through the grace and get some real sensations. Sam pushed his hand in between their bodies to grip Gabriel’s cock, smiling when Gabriel shivered and thrust frantically into his fist.

“Sam,” Gabriel hissed as he came, and it sounded almost like an apology. “ _Sam_.”

Sam was willing to take what he could get.

 

“This place,” Sofi said as she slammed the window shut,” sucks ass.”

“Language,” Amber muttered half-heartedly, marking off another name on one list and writing it on another as she read through what Sofi thought were obituaries.

And the kids at school called _her_ weird. Compared to her family, she was the height of fucking normalcy.

“Is that for Mom and Dad?” One of the bags had fallen from the seat, its contents spilling across the floor. Sofi picked up one of the knives and tried to balance it on its tip like she’d been her brothers and sister doing a lot. It cut into her finger a bit before it fell, landing on the bad with a soft thump. Amber didn’t look up, switching her pen and notebook for a highlighter and a map. Probably another one of the weird dead-people things that they made up a lot. “Have they called?”

“ _Jon and Lynn_ ,” Amber said firmly, “haven’t called or written, or done anything remotely useful since they fucked off. Stop calling them your mum and dad. They’ve never been decent to any of us and it’s about time you accepted it. This is for Will and Ally, if they ever make it here.”

Sofi rolled her eyes. That was all she ever heard from Amber. _Jon and Lynn aren’t your mum and dad._ Every fucking day. Complete with the accent. Weirdo. Mom and Dad had the accent, but Amber hadn’t even left the _state_ until she was sixteen, so there was no reason for her to have it.

Picking up one of the books- _Famous Serial Killers of the Last 100 Years_ \- Sofi pulled the post-its from the pages. The guts had been swapped out years ago for lined paper. Names, dates and questions were written all over the post-its, as well as the pages. She was reading one that had absolutely _miniscule_ writing on it when Amber came out of nowhere and snatched the book from her hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped, throwing it onto her bed and grabbing the post-its. “Do you have any idea how important that stuff is? How long it took me to do it? No, actually, here’s a better question: do you have idea about anything that isn’t part of your own selfish little life?” Her eyes went to the drops of blood on the sheets, the cut on Sofi’s finger. “Have you been at my knives? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Sofi snorted. “Like a little cut’s gonna kill me.”

“It can if it’s in the right place. I’ve had enough of your shit.” Amber grabbed her and shoved her up against the headboard, pulling something metal that glinted in the orange light from her pocket and locking it around one of the metal bars and then one of Sofi’s wrists. Sofi stared at it in shock: handcuffs. “That should keep you out of trouble until Louis gets here in the morning. I swear to God, I’m going to leave you with the next person we meet that I can trust.” She lowered her voice, but Sofi caught, “Fuck Jon and Lynn for expecting me to raise their kid when they did fuck all for the rest of us. I’ve done this for the others; I’m not doing it again.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Sofi pulled at the cuffs, but it was no use: they were locked tight. “Come on, Amy, you can’t leave me like this. It’s child abuse.”

Gathering up the notebook and pens she’d been using and tossing them into one of the bags, Amber rolled her eyes. “It’s better than murder, which is what’s going to happen if I don’t do this.” With that she stalked into the bathroom, snapped, “Yell if you have to pee,” over her shoulder and slammed the door behind her.

Sofi slumped back against the headboard. Fuck her _life_. It was always the same. Yell, yell some more and apologise. Repeat until she switched siblings. Repeat with them. The handcuffs were just a new step in a very old dance. She glanced at the photos of the cool car- a Chevy Impala, she thought it was- but both the photos and her sketchbook were too far away.

The modified Swiss army knife, complete with a cuff key (courtesy of Will and Ally) wasn’t, though.

Smiling, Sofi reached for it.

 

It was colder than she’d expected it to be but Sofi didn’t care. It was better than sitting handcuffed to a bed. Zipping her coat up to her chin and pulling on the gloves she’d stolen from Amber’s bag on the way out, she started to head out of the small town. If she got back to Birchwood, then it’d be easy to find someone from the Town (no one had ever called it anything but the Town) and she knew enough shortcuts to get home on foot faster than it was possible on the roads.

If Amber worried about her while she was gone... well, that would be a huge plus. It wasn’t like Sofi was going back to an empty house, after all. That guy, Gabriel, and his friends would be there. Gabriel was cool. He’d taught her how to do coin tricks and how to pick someone’s pocket without them noticing- and she’d pretended not to notice that he’d done the tricks differently and knew things that no one was supposed to know.

Sofi screwed up her face and squinted , trying to see what was up ahead through the sheet of snow. It looked like a woman... a woman with long red hair. A very familiar woman.

“Mom?” she asked, kicking up snow as she stumbled along the road, staggering when she twisted her ankle. When Sofi was close enough that she could be sure that she’d be heard, she said, “I knew Amber was lying. Even though you and Dad leave a lot, you _always_ come back in the end. I can’t wait until she sees you: she’s going to be _so_ pissed off.”

Her Mom didn’t reply. Sofi tugged at her shoulder, apprehension building in her stomach.

The woman that turned to face her wasn’t her Mom at all. Her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, her eyes black and sunken, something dangerous glowing in their depths. As Sofi stood there and stared at her, the colour drained from her hair until it was as black as tar.

 _Oh,_ Sofi thought before the woman’s hand touched her shoulder, _they were right about there being monsters out here._

 

Sam sat on the edge of the bed, watching the snow fall outside. The house was warm, but this close to the window he could feel the chill from outside coming off the glass.

On the other side of the bed, Gabriel lay curled up on his side, holding onto a handful of the sheets and blankets, apparently asleep. At some point in the last couple of hours he’d kicked most of the heavy blankets off and they were bunched up at the very end of the bed.

Sam could leave. He could go back to his own room and pretend that nothing had happened, that he hadn’t just had sex with Gabriel when there was no longer a deal involved. It wouldn’t take much for Sam to walk away, but he didn’t want to.

Just once, Sam wanted something that didn’t come with a price. He wanted Gabriel who, when he wasn’t actively trying to kill them or fuck with them, was a bit of a pain in the ass, but otherwise okay. He was a manipulative bastard when he felt like it, and you couldn’t trust him from one day to the next... but who could you trust?

Sam yawned. It could wait. The apocalypse and demons and monsters else weren’t waiting, but trying to decide if sleeping with an archangel who had used sex as part of a trade wasn’t a good idea, even if the deal was off, could. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a relationship that had honestly been a good idea.

“Are you going to sit there all night?” Gabriel mumbled. Sam turned around to see that he hadn’t even moved or opened his eyes. “’Cause I’m getting cold over here.”

Sighing, Sam settled in behind Gabriel, covering them both with the sheets and blankets- still a bit scrunched up, but it wasn’t as if it would matter once they were asleep. He tried not to pay attention to the way Gabriel moved back until they were pressed together so closely that a piece of paper wouldn’t fit between them, or the way that he draped one arm over Gabriel and pressed his hand against his chest to feel his heart beating.  



	6. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Winchesters and Castiel turn to Gabriel for help, Sam makes a deal he’s sure he’s going to regret. He and Gabriel both struggle with outcome, and strange disappearances and stranger weather lead them into a hunt for something that’s affecting an entire state as it lures its victims into its clutches.

The bag of groceries had only just hit the table before Gabriel started searching for the candy they’d bought in the small town nearby. Thankfully, the stores had still been open, although, save for the owner, the town itself had been deserted. At least there hadn’t been anymore disappearances. “Sam, have you got the strawberry laces- not the plain ones, the fizzy ones?”

Holding up three different bags of the laces, Sam squinted at the back. “Strawberry, strawberry and raspberry swirls or... strawberry liquor – filled? They sell these to kids?”

“Never mind, I’ll melt some chocolate for the marshmallows.”

“I’ll have those,” Dean grabbed one of the bags and ripped it open, handing a handful to Cas, who picked one up and chewed on the end, looking surprised when he seemed to like it.

“You have messages,” Castiel said from his place beside the phone, half of the lace still dangling from his hand, peering down at the answering machine. “Or, rather, the owner of this house has messages.”

Gabriel kept rifling through the bags, pulling out the chocolate and frowning when he realised that they hadn’t bought marshmallows. Damn. He’d thought they were on the list. He’d definitely written them below the _Twix x12_ note. Or maybe that had been the list Castiel had confiscated because it had been written on the back of a summoning ritual. “Play them, Amber won’t care if you hear her messages.”

 _Beep._

 _“Gabriel, it’s Amber. Something’s happened, I need you to call me when you get this message.”_

 _Beep._

 _“Gabriel, check your fucking messages. Sofi’s gone, I think she wandered off earlier because she was pissed off at me. Ally and Will are stuck out of state, so I really need your help.”_

 _Beep._

 _“If you don’t call me soon, I’m going to kill you and bury a bit of your body in every fucking state,”_ Amber snarled, but it sounded like she’d been crying. _“Sofi’s missing and I can’t get through to anyone else. The cops won’t let me leave the motel because other kids have gone missing. Something bad’s going on here. Louis says you’re the expert in weird stuff. Call me when you get this. I’m at the High Eight Motel.”_

“The High Eight Motel,” Sam repeated, rifling through the pile of notes he and Castiel had made earlier. “Isn’t that near where the kids have been disappearing?”

Dean held up one of the maps. “Bang in the middle.”

“We aren’t lucky enough that this is just a coincidence, are we?” Sam asked, studying the map with the places marked. The High Eight Motel was right in the middle, surrounded by the red dots marking disappearances. “Why did the yuki-onna go back there?”

“She now has the majority of Gabriel’s grace: she’s a great deal more powerful than she was before which means that she-.”

“Wait a minute,” Dean held up a hand, cutting Castiel off mid-sentence. “Back up a few steps. If she has his grace, then why’s she still going after kids? I thought an angel’s grace was worth more than a human’s life.”

“Life _force_ ,” Gabriel corrected him. “And it is.”

“Then why’s she still after the kids? Shouldn’t she be hiding out somewhere and staying away when she knows we’re hunting her?” To Sam, that would have made more sense, rather than looking for more victims when you knew people were after you. It was like a deer walking right in front of a group of hunters.

Castiel shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that. Although an angel’s grace is more powerful than a human’s life-force, it will also be consumed by the yuki-onna’s actions a lot faster than a human’s life-force would be. She’s already used a large amount to enable her to manipulate the weather.”

“Then we should find her before the rest of it runs out and she gets hungry.” The bag containing the guns and axes they’d managed to find in the other houses was heavy and Sam shifted it on his shoulder, already feeling the deep ache beginning to set in.

The High Eight Motel was one of the only places just off one of the few clear roads with an almost empty parking lot. The two cars were battered looking and parked side by side at the exit. Only one room looked to be occupied, the warm glow of the light shining out of the streaky windows.

Checking behind him to make sure that everyone was still standing- there had been a few near misses on the way out to the car- Sam knocked on the door. For a long minute there was nothing. He was about to knock again when the door flew open.

Amber held a knife in one hand, aiming at his throat. They stared at each other, her expression momentarily confused, before she looked over his shoulder.

“Oh,” she said, screwing up her nose when she saw Gabriel, “It’s you.” She threw the knife across the room. It landed on a duffel bag full of notebooks. “Did you have to bring your friends? This isn’t really the sort of thing I want total strangers to be involved in.”

“This isn’t my idea of a good time either, believe me,” Dean snapped back. “If you want your sister back, you’re going to listen to us.”

“Oh, am I?” Amber snarled, glancing over to where a man sat on the bed, flipping idly through a notebook. He shrugged and gestured- no, those weren’t gestures, or at least not as casual as they looked. He was signing. “For fuck’s sake, Louis, slow down. It’s too early for this.”

Rolling his eyes, Louis started to repeat himself before Castiel interrupted.

“I believe that he is of the opinion that ‘the more people looking for her, the better’,” he said. Amber, Dean, Louis and Sam started at him.

Dean tilted his head to one side ever so slightly, the unconscious imitation of the habit Castiel was gradually losing obvious. “You know sign language?”

“I have memories of every language that has ever existed. Sign language is relatively simple compared to the language of-”

“Can we hold off on the history lesson for now? Use it as pillow talk if you have to, but shut up.” Gabriel threw himself down on the bed. “We think we know who took your sister, but I need you to listen to us. Sam, where’s the map?”

Sam groaned. “I left it in the car. I’ll be back in a minute.”

 

“What did you do?” Sam hissed at Gabriel, desperately trying not to look at the scene playing out across the room.

“I tried to make her stop worrying about us being here and... she didn’t like it very much.”

Amber chose that moment to try and pin Castiel against the wall. He side-stepped her neatly and Dean looked ready to shoot her if she tried it again. Throwing up her hands, she said, “Come on, either tell me why you’re here or I’ll gut you like a fish.”

Sam dropped the bag beside the bed and threw one of the guns to Dean. “Any chance you can do something before she hurts someone?”

“Not unless you want to be cleaning blood off the walls.”

“We believe that a creature called a yuki-onna is behind the disappearance of your sister and the other children,” Castiel said and Sam winced. Direct, yes. Likely to be believed...no.

From the other side of Dean, Amber raised an eyebrow.

“Did someone drop you when you were a kid?” she asked. “Maybe on your head? From a great height?”

Gabriel looked guilty. “Yes.” At the shocked looks he hastened to add, “Not on his head!”

While the Delaneys were distracted, Dean grabbed the shotgun that Amber had pointed at him the day they had met and pointed it at Amber’s shoulder.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” she muttered. “I call Gabriel for help and you guys decide to threaten me. Look, if this is revenge for threatening to shoot your balls off, I’m not sorry, but I’ll apologise.”

“It’s not about that.” The gun didn’t waver, but the safety didn’t come off. “We’re trying-”

“Tell me it’s for my own good and the next time I have my hands on a gun, I’ll put my bad aim to very good use.”

Sam could _feel_ the situation going downhill. All they needed was the motel manager to decide to come and knock on the door and the whole situation would turn into a circus.

“Please stand still,” Castiel said, slipping between Amber and Dean, backing Amber up against the wall beside Louis. Both of them were beginning to look like cornered animals and Amber had brought out a small knife, but hesitated and glanced at Gabriel. Castiel closed the small gap between them in an instant and pressed two fingers to her forehead. For a moment it looked like she was going to stab him before the knife fell to the floor and she slumped back and slid down the wall. Castiel turned to Louis who, surprisingly, hadn’t reacted at all.

“Leave him,” Gabriel wrapped the set of clean sheets around his body as he curled up on the bed. Sam somewhat perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed. “He already knows that there’s something wrong, and he’s kept quiet about it so far.”

Dean didn’t look convinced. “How do we know he won’t tell her when she wakes up?”

“He’s mute and why would he tell her? She’s better off not knowing.”

 _Not an idiot_ , Louis wrote across the page, although he looked more like he wanted to hit Dean with the notebook than write on it. _Now give me a hand getting her up or I’ll show you how good_ my _aim is._

“Okay.” Dean helped Louis lift his friend onto one of the beds before picking up the money she’d stolen and putting it in his pocket. “If the yuki-onna’s using his grace, then how can we get it back?”

“Because it’s not that easy,” Gabriel said, still cocooned in the sheets, flipping idly through Louis’ notebook, sketching on one of the clear pages. “When it comes to our grace, we’re laptops hooked up to the mains.”

Louis rolled his eyes and snatched his notebook back and wrote _WHAT?_ before Sam had a chance to ask. For someone who was human and didn’t spend a lot of time around angels, demons or hunters, he was handling it pretty well. Then again, he was a criminal: it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that he was used to weird things.

Cas considered the metaphor for a moment, attempting to figure out exactly how it worked. “We’re connected to the host,” he began slowly, “but we can also exist separately. I was cut off when I rebelled, but Gabriel has never been cut off. When the yuki-onna absorbed his grace, it was cut off. The yuki-onna can only use the grace she now possesses and is unable to access more. We have to recover his grace before she uses what she has and re-establish the connection.”

“Why can’t Gabriel just create a new connection?” Dean asked.

Raising his head, Gabriel snapped, “You think I wouldn’t have done that if I could?”

“I mean, wouldn’t that be easier and safer than trying to get close enough to this thing to get his grace back?”

“It would be easier but not safer.” Castiel picked up the notebook and flipping it back to Gabriel’s sketch. Sam craned his neck to get a look at it. It was of a row of angels plugged into a socket with an angel that looked a lot like Zachariah trapped inside a light bulb above them. “It’s likely that Gabriel is not being monitored and the severing of his grace has gone undetected. The existing grace could be reconnected without arousing suspicions, as we often have to temporarily mask ourselves from demons. A new connection would gain the attention of our brothers.”

“And that wouldn’t be a good thing. It would be like setting off a flare the size of Saturn,” Gabriel motioned to the window. “They find out I’m here and they’ll be dragging me upstairs for their little torture sessions to try and re-educate me. And I don’t want to go home until this is over.”

They sat in silence, staring out at the snow that was still falling rapidly. The yuki-onna was moving closer to the towns, Sam was sure of it. She would abduct the children until she had enough energy to manipulate every person in the area into walking right into her traps.

Unless they trapped her first.

Dean picked up one of the knives on the bedside cabinet. “So what do we do?”

“I think I’ve got an idea, but I don’t know if it’s going to work. I need to check some things with Castiel and Gabriel(,)” Sam said, taking the other notebook from the bed, flicking through it until he found a clean page to make notes on, “and we’ll need to keep everyone in town.”

Louis snatched his notebook from Cas and flipped back to the sheets of cardboard at the back. _NO PROBLEM_

Sam started to write.

“This is a bad idea,” Dean muttered as he, Sam and Castiel struggled through the snow. It was almost up to their knees, and the ground felt even more uneven than it had before. He was going to break his leg up here, he could feel it. “What the hell’s making you think that this is going to work? It’s a terrible plan!”

“Have you got any better ideas?” Sam hissed. “If you do, I’d love to hear them.”

“Hey, I didn’t say I had a better idea, it’s just that there’s probably better plans than this one. Maybe ones that don’t involve...” Dean trailed off as the snow around them started to shift. _That’s our cue._ He hoisted the axe over his shoulder, noticing that Castiel was already gone. “Sam. Cave.”

“Got it.” Sam sidled along the wall and disappeared into the darkness of the cave, lighter and gasoline at the ready.

The yuki-onna materialised inches from them, casting a bored gaze around the area, catching sight of Cas. Dean tensed. If she only saw Cas, then everything would be fine, but if she looked to the side and saw Sam, when he came back, or Dean standing behind a thick tree, just out of sight, then they were screwed. If the yuki-onna thought for second that she was being threatened, she’d drain them faster than they could defend themselves. Dean held his breath as she approached Cas, backing him up against the tree.

 _Come on, Sam. Hurry up. If you don’t hit her, we’re screwed._

Sam appeared at the mouth of the cave, nodding at Dean- the children were okay- before he crept through the snow towards the yuki-onna, gasoline raised. The yuki-onna stopped, canting her head to one side before she turned around and got half of the canister of gasoline thrown over her. For a moment, she only stared at Sam, making no move to harm him.

Then the gasoline slowly iced over.

 

The box of matches fell from Dean’s hand, landing soundlessly in the snow.

 _No. No, no, no. This isn’t supposed to happen._

“So little power, little one.” Her voice was a low hiss that made Dean shiver, as if the cold was sinking into his bones. “But it’s all mine for the taking.”

 _Just a little closer... One more step..._ One more step and she’d be close enough to catch, would have been close enough to kill. _One more step, and it’s time for Plan B._

For a long moment, it looked like she was going to turn around, or go into the cave after Sam, but she stepped closer to Castiel, sliding her fingers across his cheekbone.

“Not much left now, but what is... oh, it’s _nice_.”

Dean stepped out from behind the tree and swung the axe, the blade sinking right through her and into the tree, missing Cas by inches. She whirled around as Cas vanished.

“You thought that this would kill me?” she asked, baring her teeth in a gruesome parody of a smile. “It takes more than you’ve ever possessed to kill me, little one.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dean looked over her shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to kill you this time.”

She turned around too late, getting only a glimpse of Gabriel and Castiel before the latter reached out and grabbed her. Castiel’s hand touched her cheek, his other hand against Gabriel’s, a steady glow beginning to pour from the yuki-onna’s eyes and mouth.

Dean didn’t need to be told to close his eyes.

 

Sam was still blinking away flashing spots when Gabriel straightened up, rolling his shoulders experimentally. The yuki-onna backed away slowly, looking terrified. She was just raising her hand when Gabriel shook his head and she let out a strangled scream, struggling on the spot.

“You took something from me,” Gabriel remarked conversationally, advancing on her. The yuki-onna kept screaming, but none of her tricks from the other times they’d fought her appeared to be working. There was no more snow- in fact, if anything, the snow was getting lighter, the flakes smaller, the gasoline finally soaking into the creature’s hair, running down her face like tears.

The air around them shifted, but it was nothing like anything Sam had felt before. No, that was a lie. It wasn’t like the energy of any of the _monsters_ they’d been around. It was sharper, deadlier, lethal in its very existence. It was the same crackle that had been in the air when they’d seen Lucifer, magnified by Gabriel’s anger and thousands of years of posing as a trickster until the two identities merged.

As Gabriel passed him, Sam caught a glimpse of gold in his eyes, a smirk flashed in his direction. The yuki-onna began to scream in a language that Sam had never heard, every word like someone was ripping his nerves into tiny pieces and cutting them up.

“And I don’t like it when something steals from me.”

There was one second of pure silence, when everything went so still that Sam swore the world was really going to end, before Gabriel snapped his fingers.

With a scream that made Sam’s entire body hurt, the yuki-onna burst into flames: her body began to burn, blacken and crumble, caving in on itself as Gabriel stood there and watched, looking every bit an archangel, the fire glowing in the depths of his eyes.

“Get the kids, Sam,” he said, casting his eyes skyward, “preferably before my brothers and sisters realise what’s going on.”

 

They appeared just behind the covering of the trees by the motel, the children still drowsy, just waking up enough to start looking around. Luckily, they were all small enough to be easily carried, or at least supported. That was probably one of the reasons the yuki-onna had taken them: easy enough to control without using very much energy. Sam leaned over to try and keep the boy he was holding upright- Eric, maybe.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” someone screamed just out of sight. “You let three strangers go out looking for Sofi- after I’m done killing them, I’m going to _slaughter_ you!”

Dean, who had one arm around a semi-conscious Sofi, looked like he would rather fight the yuki-onna again than have a face-to-face encounter with Amber.

“Brace yourselves,” Gabriel quipped as they rounded the corner.

When she saw them, Amber froze, looking murderous as she regarded them. Then she saw Sofi, and all the anger melted from her expression, replaced by intense relief. She ran across the parking lot, kicking up snow as she went, and threw her arms around Sofi, hugging her tightly.

“I’m sorry,” Sofi said, hanging on to Amber as Dean worked on untangling himself from her. “I shouldn’t have left. I’m so sorry, Amy.”

Face buried in her sister’s hair, Amber replied, “Well, I did yell. And cuff you to the bed.”

“They won’t remember,” Gabriel said and Sam started. He hadn’t heard him move. “Just a little trick that comes in handy when I don’t want someone to remember what happened. As far as they know, they wandered off and got lost in the blizzards. They spent all this time hiding in a cave. No big, bad wolf; no fireworks show.”

That was good. No horribly scarring memories that would drag them into their lifestyle later on in their lives.

“We should call the cops, tell them we found the kids,” Dean gave Amber a wide berth as he accepted Louis’ offered cellphone- he’d left his behind after their first encounter with the yuki-onna, and the others had been in the Impala. “Bobby mentioned another hunt further north, so we should set off tomorrow morning.”

“The snow will be gone by tomorrow morning. It’s likely that the meteorologists will dismiss it as a freak accident,” Castiel said. “When the roads are clear, it won’t take very long to get out of town.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, looking at Gabriel, who didn’t look back at him. “Out of town.”

 

The next morning Dean leaned against the Impala watching the snow melt. Most of the snow from the roof of the car had melted and fallen off since Castiel had been nice enough to bring it to the motel via angel air, and what little remained was dripping off.

“The snow’s almost gone,” he said. Castiel nodded his agreement. “When Sam’s finished saying goodbye, we’ll be leaving.”

Dean had left as soon as Sofi had woken up. It wasn’t that he hated the kid- unless they were possessed by demons, he didn’t really mind kids- it was that she showed too much interest in his sort-of relationship with Castiel for him to feel comfortable being in the same room as her for too long. Her descriptions had been very detailed.

“She does possess a very good understanding of-” Castiel started.

Dean held up a hand. “Please don’t finish that sentence.”

It had been even worse when Sofi had switched her focus to Sam and Gabriel. Even Amber, who had spent most of the conversation laughing at Dean’s palpable shock and discomfort, had tried to shut her up. Gabriel had kept laughing, the bastard.

And now his brother was saying goodbye to the Archangel turned Trickster turned Archangel by the door to the motel. Not hugging him, but standing very close to him and-

Oh. Sam smiled at the Delaneys, but when he started to walk away Amber followed him.

“I still don’t like you,” she announced as she approached Dean, flashing Cas a smile when she passed him, “but you found Sofi, so I’ll thank you. So this is me... thanking you. And apologising for threatening to shoot your balls off, and I’m actually sorry.”

They stared at each other. Dean was about to ask what she was doing when she hugged him, before pulling away and bolting across the parking lot like a demon he’d splashed with holy water.

“That was weird.” Throwing the last of the bags into the trunk of the car, Dean got in and switched the engine on, Led Zeppelin blaring from the speakers. Sam winced, but got in anyway.

Cas looked perplexed when he got into the back seat. “I thought that was normal among humans.”

“ _That_ wasn’t normal in _any_ situation.” Dean made sure that the girl wasn’t aiming anything at him, but she’d already gone back into the motel room.

He pretended that he didn’t notice the way that Sam watched Gabriel in the rear-view mirror until they couldn’t see him anymore.

 

Gabriel set the first carving by the door and put the smaller one to the side to give to Sofi when she and Louis got back from the store. It wasn’t needed to keep anything out and it had kept her quiet while he’d made the others. The book the designs were kept in was gone now, hidden in the bottom of Sam’s duffel bag, along with some other things that would be useful: more holy oil, some charms and books that didn’t exist anymore. Along with the lube and the condoms because he’d known that Sam wouldn’t be going back to the house and hadn’t wanted to explain why they were there.

 _Focus,_ Gabriel reminded himself sternly. There were three more carvings to do before he was going to try and get Louis to talk- because he knew that he _could_ and it was about time he got back into the habit of screwing with people until he got what he wanted. The Winchesters and his brother had turned him soft. Sofi wanted him to help her make a giant rubber band ball because she was already bored and he was better at it than anyone else, then there were a few bastards in Birchwood who needed to get their comeuppance and, well, he wouldn’t be the Trickster if he didn’t give them it.

“If you want to go, go,” Amber called, glaring at him from where she was lying on her bed. “Just stop muttering under your breath.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Whatever. Sulk all you want, but it’ll only take you longer to get where you’re going,” Amber tossed a handful of bills, a wallet and a cell phone to him. “Just give these to the older one when you see them.”

They were Dean’s, Gabriel realised belatedly. The wallet had been John Winchester’s for years before he’d given it to Dean, the leather worn soft by years of use, and the cell had been bought in a small town they’d never went near again. “When you did you take this stuff?”

“When I thanked him, but I feel guilty now so he can have it all back. I didn’t even spend the money.” She made a disgusted noise. “I feel like a _good Samaritan_ ;it’s disgusting. I need a shower.”

“I think stealing it stops you from being one.”

Looking happier, Amber picked up a pile of threadbare towels and went into the bathroom.

Gabriel waited until he was sure that the shower would disguise anything suspicious before he ducked out of the room and vanished.

 

“What the hell?” Dean yelled as Gabriel appeared in the backseat with a lollypop sticking out of his mouth. The car swerved dangerously before he wrenched the wheel to the right, narrowly avoiding a tree before he got it back on the road. “Could you not do that when I’m driving?”

In the rear view mirror, Dean saw Cas sliding closer to the window and further away from the archangel. He didn’t really blame him.

Gabriel shrugged. “I could ride with you all the time, if you want?”

“No.” _No way is he being in here all the time. The candy alone’ll ruin the seats. And I don’t want to give him ideas. He is_ not _having sex in my car._

Sam met Gabriel’s eyes in the rear view mirror and smiled faintly. Gabriel smirked back while Dean decided that they’d be getting two rooms, and maybe he’d convince Cas to keep an eye on Sam and Gabriel to make sure nothing happened between them...


End file.
